Apple IIgs - Manual (Page 31)

Page 31 of 84 II gs
Printed: Thursday, July 25, 2002 12:14:50 PM
moves, it leaves a trail on the screen. Ideally, you aren't just taught how many steps to take
or how many degrees to turn to draw a square, a circle, or a triangle. The motivation for
learning how many degrees make a right angle, a circle, and so on comes from your desire to
draw a house, a ball, or a tree.
Pascal: The biggest incentive for students to learn Pascal is that it is the language used by
the Educational Testing Service for the college advanced-placement test in computer science.
Besides that practical consideration, learning Pascal teaches you good programming habits. It's
a structured language, which means that you have to plan your program before you start writing
it, and you build your program out of smaller subprograms. Programs with a structure are easier
to debug and easier for other programmers to understand than the convoluted programs that can
result from languages that let you design as you go along.
If you'd like first-hand experience with programming, go through A Touch of Applesoft BASIC.
This book starts from square one. But by the time you finish, you'll know enough to write a
simple program for balancing your checkbook, and you'll know whether programming is something
you want to pursue further.
Home Finance
Home finance applications help you make decisions about personal investments. You can use a
home finance application to:
Prepare a home budget (then compare your actual income and expenses to the income and expenses
you projected).
Flag deductible expenses to simplify the preparation of your tax return.
Determine net worth (the current value of your assets minus your liabilities).
Keep track of the appreciation and depreciation of your property.
Find out when you have enough cash on hand to pay bills or make investments.
Evaluate different investment options.
Evaluate loan options. (Can you afford to pay off your home in 15 years or do you need a
30-year loan?)
The only hard part of using a home finance application is finding all your financial papersloan
forms, mortgage papers, bank books, check registers, last year's tax return, salary records,
free-lance income records, certificates of deposit, stock certificates, phone bills, utility
bills, credit card bills, and anything else that affects your finances.
Don't shy away from a home finance application because words like amortization and depreciation
are foreign to you. Most home finance applications assume ignorance of financial jargon and
teach what you need to know as you go along. Even if you have an accountant do your taxes, and
a stock broker or financial adviser plan your investments, a home finance application gives you
more control over your finances by keeping you better informed and organized.
In addition to general-purpose home finance applications, there are very specialized
applications for balancing your checkbook, managing your stock portfolio, managing your real
estate, preparing your income taxes, and more.
Accounting
Accounting software does the same things a manual accounting system can do (general ledger,