Back in 1987, 30 years ago, the programming language Pascal was the first programming language I learned in college. I had just started programming my own accounting system using Pascal, when I first saw PC-Plus, the mother of NAV. It was love on first sight. I instantly knew I didn't have to program it myself, it was already there. Two years later, when collage was over and I had my first Navision job, there was no more programming Pascal for me. I felt I had enough of programming in college. Meeting Cobol in second year was a mixed experience. So my first NAV job was as a project manager/consultant/trainer (I had worked with accounting before college). IBM Navigator 3.0 had just been released a few month before and included an integrated AL language which was based on Pascal, so I couldn't keep my hands away for long. But except for web design html/css etc. for DUG's website and a few simple C# control add-ins, then I stayed within C/SIDE's and C/AL's safe walls. Until now It's like being back in the first years of college. Back then it was the new Turbo Pascal compiler, created by Danish Anders Hejlsberg, brother of Thomas, NAV software architect since 2003). The last 2 months I had the time to really get started with Visual Studio Code and the new AL Extensions. I am almost as enthusiastic as I was back then. It's like I have gotten back the same joy in programming, that I had with programming Pascal in college. AL has finally become a real programming language. I see the beginning of a great future for our old Navision.
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