4 ms·

Is Pascal really considered a second-class language in the industry so using it in the past is some disreputable act? I notice some level of condescension to th

Is Pascal really considered a second-class language in the industry so using it in the past is some disreputable act? I notice some level of condescension to the language itself from time to time, but surely it's a valid experience, or am I wrong? Hope it's just some thing from the 2001.

Tozen 5y ago
The "hate" for Pascal (or at least weirdness towards it) was arguably generated by AT&T, and to a lesser extent by Microsoft. The Pascal programming language (to include Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and the IDE from Borland) were in the way and in competition to the languages that AT&T (C and C++) and Microsoft (BASIC and later C#) were attempting to push on the masses. Thus it became a thing to bash it. A lot of this was done by "hit pieces" written about Pascal and then often unthinkingly regurgitated in the media, books, and various blogs. Probably the most well known, that many programmers would know off the top of their heads, is "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language", written in 1981 by Brian Kernighan. There were many more similar short "hit jobs" written like it. What is overlooked by many people is that Brian Kernighan worked for AT&T/Bell Labs (and didn't retire until around 2000). He was an advocate for C and friends of Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, co-creators of the C language. Sorry to digress a bit, but Ken Thompson would later on co-create Golang (Go), which many argue shows a strong Pascal influence. Brian Kernighan's assessment of Pascal was very bias, and should have been taken as such. Instead, it was "weaponized" as a way to disparage and discourage use of Pascal, even 20 to 40 years later. Even though: 1) Many of the negatives stated in his papers became no longer true as Pascal evolved as a programming language (to include Object Pascal/Delphi descendants). 2) What he stated were negatives were not true for various versions of Pascal around even the time of his paper being published. 3) Some of the things he described as "negatives" at the time, turned out to actually be positives about the language. Probably a good idea to take a look at the below link to get a better idea of various points: https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Why_Pascal_is_Not_My_Favorite_Programming_Language https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Why_Pascal_is_Not_My_Fav... Microsoft was the other major player involved, because it could be described that it went to war with Borland (including using dirty tactics), in order to squash it. Particularly Turbo Pascal, various products of Borland, and trying to derail the company. This includes hiring away Borland's top engineers to work for Microsoft, and among their biggest pilfered treasures was Anders Hejlsberg (the creator of C# and Turbo Pascal). Even today, in various C family language circles, there is unfounded and unthinking dislike for Pascal/Object Pascal/Delphi or anything not using curly braces. Despite that the language is a very good and viable alternative to C, C++, Java, or C#.
- ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
  Thanks a lot for the detailed answer. I knew some of these facts, but I'm surprised all of it has such a lasting effect. My point was that even if one deems Pascal an inferior language, they can't deny it has a complete set of control structures so experience of programming in Pascal is transferable to other languages.
dylan604 5y ago
>using it in the past is some disreputable act? we all had to take a basic programming class at the beginning too, but that was like when moses was a baby cruising down the river. do beginning programming classes still start with BASIC/Pascal? i'm assuming boot camps don't, but do typical programming classes skip over them entirely too now?
- damnedspot 5y ago
  Both my high school and undergrad intro courses used Java.
- marcosdumay 5y ago
  The "start programing" courses tend to start with Pyhton, the "we train professionals" ones tend to start with Java or C#, and the academic ones vary between C, Python, Java or Haskell. I don't think people learn Pascal nowadays. And basic (whatever capitalization, prefix or suffix you add) is dead.
  - Tozen 5y ago
    Many school systems still teach Pascal or Object Pascal (which includes Delphi). So this question is relative to the country that a person is talking about. South Africa, Jamaica, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, etc... use various dialects of Object Pascal (Turbo Pascal, PascalABC, Free Pascal/Lazarus, Delphi...). Various teachers and school systems find that Pascal/Object Pascal is superior for introducing and teaching programming concepts. We have to keep in mind that part of the reason that Pascal was created, was to teach it in schools. But don't get confused (as some detractors try to make it seem Pascal is only for academic purposes), as Turbo Pascal and Delphi show that Pascal can be successfully used commercially too. There was quite some controversy years ago, when South African schools switched over from Java to Delphi. The school system felt that Delphi/Object Pascal was the better choice. To get a taste, check out Mr Long Education's (a teacher from South Africa) Delphi/Object Pascal YouTube channel below (there are a number of similar such Delphi/Object Pascal YouTube channels) https://www.youtube.com/user/MrLongEducation/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/MrLongEducation/videos

Tozen 5y ago

The "hate" for Pascal (or at least weirdness towards it) was arguably generated by AT&T, and to a lesser extent by Microsoft. The Pascal programming language (to include Turbo Pascal, Delphi, and the IDE from Borland) were in the way and in competition to the languages that AT&T (C and C++) and Microsoft (BASIC and later C#) were attempting to push on the masses. Thus it became a thing to bash it. A lot of this was done by "hit pieces" written about Pascal and then often unthinkingly regurgitated in the media, books, and various blogs. Probably the most well known, that many programmers would know off the top of their heads, is "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language", written in 1981 by Brian Kernighan. There were many more similar short "hit jobs" written like it. What is overlooked by many people is that Brian Kernighan worked for AT&T/Bell Labs (and didn't retire until around 2000). He was an advocate for C and friends of Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, co-creators of the C language. Sorry to digress a bit, but Ken Thompson would later on co-create Golang (Go), which many argue shows a strong Pascal influence. Brian Kernighan's assessment of Pascal was very bias, and should have been taken as such. Instead, it was "weaponized" as a way to disparage and discourage use of Pascal, even 20 to 40 years later. Even though: 1) Many of the negatives stated in his papers became no longer true as Pascal evolved as a programming language (to include Object Pascal/Delphi descendants). 2) What he stated were negatives were not true for various versions of Pascal around even the time of his paper being published. 3) Some of the things he described as "negatives" at the time, turned out to actually be positives about the language. Probably a good idea to take a look at the below link to get a better idea of various points: https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Why_Pascal_is_Not_My_Favorite_Programming_Language https://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Why_Pascal_is_Not_My_Fav... Microsoft was the other major player involved, because it could be described that it went to war with Borland (including using dirty tactics), in order to squash it. Particularly Turbo Pascal, various products of Borland, and trying to derail the company. This includes hiring away Borland's top engineers to work for Microsoft, and among their biggest pilfered treasures was Anders Hejlsberg (the creator of C# and Turbo Pascal). Even today, in various C family language circles, there is unfounded and unthinking dislike for Pascal/Object Pascal/Delphi or anything not using curly braces. Despite that the language is a very good and viable alternative to C, C++, Java, or C#.

ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
Thanks a lot for the detailed answer. I knew some of these facts, but I'm surprised all of it has such a lasting effect. My point was that even if one deems Pascal an inferior language, they can't deny it has a complete set of control structures so experience of programming in Pascal is transferable to other languages.

dylan604 5y ago

>using it in the past is some disreputable act? we all had to take a basic programming class at the beginning too, but that was like when moses was a baby cruising down the river. do beginning programming classes still start with BASIC/Pascal? i'm assuming boot camps don't, but do typical programming classes skip over them entirely too now?

damnedspot 5y ago
Both my high school and undergrad intro courses used Java.
marcosdumay 5y ago
The "start programing" courses tend to start with Pyhton, the "we train professionals" ones tend to start with Java or C#, and the academic ones vary between C, Python, Java or Haskell. I don't think people learn Pascal nowadays. And basic (whatever capitalization, prefix or suffix you add) is dead.
- Tozen 5y ago
  Many school systems still teach Pascal or Object Pascal (which includes Delphi). So this question is relative to the country that a person is talking about. South Africa, Jamaica, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, etc... use various dialects of Object Pascal (Turbo Pascal, PascalABC, Free Pascal/Lazarus, Delphi...). Various teachers and school systems find that Pascal/Object Pascal is superior for introducing and teaching programming concepts. We have to keep in mind that part of the reason that Pascal was created, was to teach it in schools. But don't get confused (as some detractors try to make it seem Pascal is only for academic purposes), as Turbo Pascal and Delphi show that Pascal can be successfully used commercially too. There was quite some controversy years ago, when South African schools switched over from Java to Delphi. The school system felt that Delphi/Object Pascal was the better choice. To get a taste, check out Mr Long Education's (a teacher from South Africa) Delphi/Object Pascal YouTube channel below (there are a number of similar such Delphi/Object Pascal YouTube channels) https://www.youtube.com/user/MrLongEducation/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/MrLongEducation/videos