What's your opinion about Pascal?

Question

Is it worthy to learn Pascal? I have to learn it because it is the first thing they teach us for programming in the university, but I haven't started yet and I never seen someone saying it is useful or something like that
Do you think it is good they teach us that first and only then something like C#? Or is just something they should change in the subject?

Answer 1

Pascal and his triangles 😂😂

Answer 2

When it comes to learning at universities, so on large, mass scale, it's a whole of a different story.

In my opinion for most of professors it is not a question of "Pascal is good to teach our students the basics", but rather "I've been teaching Pascal for 30 years, why would I change it?"

Really, there is no point in teaching old language paradigms when both the existing and new developments are done totally differently now. For the majority of students this know-how will cease to be needed after they pass exams.

Answer 3

I think Pascal is not very common anymore. Although there are a few derived languages which are still present in some niches.
It's as good as any other language to learn the basics of programming. I think many universities first teach a non-oop language to take care of the concepts of oop later on. At school I started with Pascal, at university with C, then C++, then Java, then others. But my very first programming language at work was Pascal-derived.

Answer 4

Thanks for your opininion Luka and Tashi, I think it might be good for learning bases

Answer 5

Thank you both for answering, I never heard of it before and didn't knew it uses.
Could you tell me if it is similar in sintax to another programming lenguage shown in this app?

Answer 6

Depends what you mean by 'worth of' - any knowledge can be worthwhile :)
Also, Pascal is kind of old, so I assume not many new developments are there. However, country-dependent, there might be some applications which are still operating - many public administration systems and databases have user interfaces done in Pascal and/or Pascal-based framework like Delphi and alike. Specialists are scarce and so they could be well-paid.

Answer 7

Thank you so much for your help 😊

Answer 8

That's a hard question to answer. Turbo Pascal's object-handling heritage heavily influenced... C# - as both were (co-)created by the same author :)

But from my glimpse look on different syntaxes and my pretty vast but over a 20-year-outdated xp in Pascal, I find some similarities with Ruby and Python. The big difference is, though, that Pascal was a compiled language.

Answer 9

In Russia, Pascal (and Delphi, of course) is very popular language in universities.

Many database-software were written with Delphi. Fast work, convenient IDE and Form Designer, etc.

There are some jobs, which requires knowledge of Delphi, Pascal. But for maintaining legacy software, in general.

It is simple and powerful enough. Perfect for learning programming. Personally, I started with Turbo Pascal, then Delphi...

And then some Visual Basic, some Haskell, Prolog, Java - and finally, C#, which so similar to Pascal, Delphi by syntax.

P.S. We also used Lazarus at University. It is Object Pascal with support of Linux, Windows.

P.P.S. Ah, Borland Delphi 7... One of the best IDE in that time. I will remember it.

P.P.P.S. Do you know that many good software were written with Delphi, Lazarus? E.g. Total Commander...

Answer 10

@Nabeegh Ahmed Thank you so much but I don't have snapchat

Answer 11

It is useful for measuring air pressure. :)
I have never heard of it used for programming languages, though.

Answer 12

I learned pascal 20 years ago at the university. I liked it, but we are talking about a while ago. Maybe it's a good starting for getting the main idea about programming as pseudocoding is, but it is obviously obsolete.

Answer 13

here in India we learn c

Answer 14

my teacher in the university who taught us programing languages was very proud because he learnt it in his university time, and he said " learning Pascal helped me in knowing the good side of the other computer language". Now he can differentiate and determine which is the better language to be used in certain circumstances.

Answer 15

in Algeria we learn Embracadero DELPHI

Answer 16

As a university professor who is about to teach a data analytics course at a business school, I wouldn't​ consider an older language like Pascal simply because it's not helpful for students looking for jobs. I am planning on teaching either Python or R. A useful ranking of popular programming languages is here. Note that Pascal isn't in the top 20. http://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

Answer 17

It was a compulsory subject in my class 8, that time I found it to be a very tough language but didn't get time to work on it after that as with 5 years of experience in IT I didn't even saw a single project using Pascal.

Answer 18

Attempted to learn it in College in the UK.

In short, it was horrible and I almost gave up programming.

In long, it's an old language that was badly taught, didn't make any sense at the time and had a really bad experience with it. Other people may disagree with me and say it's a great language, that's fine, there is a fair chance I'd like it if I tried to go back and learn it again

Answer 19

Is it worth the learn???

Answer 20

There is no best pick. it's as good as any choice.
However what is changed is the age when learner start learning programming. to get to know basic structures of computer programs there already apps for kids aged 10 or younger. like lightbot hour and others. so when you come to university chances are good you already know to program and that should be considered....