Sure, and I still fail to see why going through it and using Pascal is supposed to be a problem.

The toolchain probably isn't on your computer. And the internet provides 72 options (or 99 if you consider Notepad, Subline Text, and gedit).

Why is the text editor even an issue? Anyone able to learn how to write a compiler is fully capable of deciding which editor or IDE to use.

The book isn't for people who are able to write compilers.

When I discovered Hacker News, I'd never heard of Python. When I joined, I used Visual Studio Express, or rather Expresses because each was language locked. Obviously, I ran Windows. It was still four years until I bit the Emacs bullet.

Yeah, installing and running Pascal wouldn't be a problem for me now. But I remember a time when it would have been. I remember what that was like. Half of all programmers are below average. I'm certainly one of them.

So they are in for a surprise, because even on FOSS friendly OSes programming languages aren't installed by default unless one choses either full installation or a development profile.

Pythons, Perl, and gcc are commonly part of Linux distros. C compilers have been part of Unix since K&R. They are necessary to install the system.

Hell, noobs rPi’s come with the Wolfram language too.

Being part of distros doesn't mean they are installed, specially on commercial UNIXes since compiler tools became a separate product.

Better read the history of gcc, it was commercialization of UNIX C compilers introduced by Sun, that made people start paying attention to gcc. Until then it was a largely ignored effort.

Finally I don't believe that anyone skilful enough to learn how to install Linux, is not able to install a compiler.

Just like any other programming language, so what is the problem?