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C00002 00002	To the reviewer of my manuscript, from R. W. Floyd.
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To the reviewer of my manuscript, from R. W. Floyd.

The condition of this ms. reflects its past. I have taught for some years an
introductory programming course with a one year math prerequisite, using such
texts as Schneider, Weingart, and Perlman or some old notes of my own that
cover about the first month of the course, through nested FOR and IF statements,
assignment, and simple I/O. Whenever a lecture seemed good to me, I wrote it
up. I am now filling in the gaps in this set of lectures to make a text.
It is most gappy in the introductory sections on Pascal, some of which are
more or less absent. All the standard topics, however, will go in; there will
even be a section on the appropriate and disciplined use of GO TO.

Some sections are rough drafts, and many of the programs are undebugged.
All programs will be debugged thoroughly before publication, and program
listings in the ms. will be electronically copied from running programs.
For samples which are stylistically final drafts, see pp. 1-9, 52-54, 61-66,
90-95, 97-98, 113-120, 125-126, 128-142, 147-153, 169-178. I intend that the
entire text will meet the standards set by the above pages. While corrections
of grammatical lapses will be welcomed, I hope the reviewer will be more
concerned with the intellectual structure of the entire undertaking.

I have not hesitated to use the first person singular. I think a programmer
should develop _a_ discipline; my own is presented as an example of the type.
There is a human voice, I hope, addressing the reader, saying why I think
certain practices wise, not a voice from above giving laws.

Some sections have been electronically phototypeset; others are ordinary
computer printout, or worse.  Naturally all will eventually be edited and
printed to the highest standards of typography.  The ms. shows its history
as a set of course notes. Such references will be deleted. Where it is
technically feasible, all programs will adhere to the ISO Pascal Standard;
exceptions will be clearly marked.

I do not plan to cover all of Pascal in the body of the ms.; for convenience,
major features not covered will be defined in appendices, though such topics
as varant records are best left to a reference book like Clancy's _Standard
Pascal_, which I recommend to settle the more technical questions anyway.