Maybe it's a question of personal taste, but Pascal (in any of its newer forms) isn't a langauge I like working with. Up-front variable declaration, verbose flow control, next to no support for functional programming... LCL is nice, I especially like how small the result is, but in the last ~30 years, programming language design has progressed a lot and Pascal just seems archaic, and not in a good way. Modern PL design isn't just about "syntax sugar" as the FreePascal community would have you believe.
Sorry, I am not convinced. To me, Pascal's syntax and source code organization is archaic. Even more archaic would be COBOL and BCPL. On a somewhat similar level to Pascal, perhaps Erlang as well.
People's opinions do change over time, but I do not think it's likely that there is a renaissance awaiting Pascal's overall design decisions, specifically the ways in which Pascal differs from C. That's because differing from C is costly and requires justification. In some cases, I think Pascal's decisions just proved wrong; like the lack of short-circuiting in boolean expressions. I assume modern Pascal compilers have resolved this, but it's a good example of how I think things go: ideas that improve the status quo are worth bringing back, ideas that have a lot of switching costs are a hard sell.
I also understand that sometimes the difference may seem superficial, and that's because they are. Are Pascal units really vastly different from modern translation units/modules? Somewhat, but not that much. But it differs enough that someone not familiar with Pascal needs some time to adapt, whereas almost anyone with programming experience of any level can pick up Go, because it's stupidly simple. It does differ from C and other languages that are still contemporary, but when it does differ it's often good: the type syntax and declaration syntax is massively simpler than C, for example. (And yes, Pascal's type syntax is also better, at least by some measures.)
I'm happy to discuss these matters, but I will also be completely honest: I'm not particularly moved by this line of argument. It feels somewhere between semantics and an implicit desire to consider a future where Pascal syntax somehow becomes in vogue again as it was in the early 2000's. Maybe an evolved Pascal, but not the Pascal of today. And if I'm wrong, I'm wrong; I'm just calling it the way I see it.
Pascal (and the entire family - Modula etc) is a language designed by a guy with an academic background in PLs. This shows in the design: e.g. the syntax is verbose and has a very rigid structure, which can often be frustrating to the user (like the need to declare all variables in a separate declaration block at the beginning of each function), but which makes it extremely easy to parse with just a single token lookahead. Similarly, the semantics are such that they're easy for a compiler to implement.
Borland still did a great job with their implementation performance-wise, and the legendary reputation of their Pascal compilers is well-deserved. But they had a solid foundation to build on in form of a tool-friendly language, which C++ just doesn't offer.
Pascal was one of my first languages and I love it for that, but I can’t imagine going back to it. It never had a modern ecosystem and the OOP stuff was super janky
"Pascal is a "hidden" gem in the area of languages"
I agree. Programmers won't look at it because they perceive it to be old and out-of-date. But the language hasn't stood still. It's a fast, low-memory language. FreePascal with the Lazarus IDE is one of the best cross-platform development toolkits for building native desktop apps.
Sadly a lot of programmers can never see beyond the verbose (but readable) syntax.
Pascal might not be weird but it is unpleasant. It has many inconveniences to offer the modern programmer. In its day, in comparison to C -- by programmers for programmers -- Pascal was derided by one computer scientist as "a police-state language" for its many strictures and missing affordances.
I was just exploring Pascal last month. I've been meaning to do some more programming in it. I think it's a good compromise for someone who wants a lower level language but doesn't want to use C or C++. The FreePascal compiler also rips through thousands of lines of code a second so the compile times are really short
Pascal isn't too bad; actually I think that it has some advantages over some more modern programming languages. It isn't perfect though and does have disadvantages too. I sometimes use for Pascal and BASIC for DOS programming; Pascal does look OK for that, at least (and C seems not as good for DOS programming (at least in real mode), even though it is sometimes done). However, for programming in Linux, I generally prefer C (although I also use PostScript; I think that both C and PostScript have some advantages compared with some more modern programming languages). Pascal can be used for other programs too; even TeX is written in Pascal.
But why. I don't understand why you'd use Pascal today when you could use C++. I jumped over 25 years ago and never missed Pascal the language, only the Turbo Pascal development environment. Many languages later I still have never wanted to go back and write in any Pascal variant. It's a verbose, weak, and inexpressive language.
Pascal is an really uncomfortable language to be writing new code in 2022. In 2005 it was arguably better than most flavors of C++ but now it belongs to a museum.
modern pascal is actually pretty good. it's very unfortunate that it isn't considered sexy. i learned programming on turbo pascal and used to think that pascal isn't a serious language. years later, after seeing that it's not dead and dropping prejudices against it i can see that it lost pretty much only because of its perceived uncoolness.
The language has evolved, but it still falls squarely in the imperative, OO camp.
And besides, you mentioned than you'd prefer to stick with more functional languages. It's hard to prove someone's preference wrong. :)
I mostly share your preference, but I make an exception for Pascal. There's just something about it that draws me in, even though I've only used it for fun, and not professionally.
Pascal was my favorite language for a number of years. But it was completely inappropriate for systems programming because it was too protective, it kept you from doing the things that are regularly required at an OS level.
We are actually using pascal for a very large project in healthcare (journal management). There is nothing wrong with the language, per se even though it is not the fanciest one.
Our codebase is one of the cleanest I have worked with, and it compiles very fast. We are using freepascal, and even though I would not use it for my hobby projects (which I try to do mostly in scheme or factor) I would say it is one of the more pleasant languages I have worked in.
The strength of Pascal is the spirit of the language and the compiler. You can get some really high quality machine code out of something that is cognitively straightforward - it's something that, in my opinion, no language has achieved since.
It's a nice thought, but Pascal's age and its verbose (but highly readable) syntax means that many programmers will never give it more than a passing glance (regardless of the modern features it has to offer).
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