For those programmers around here.
I was thinking about the downfall of Pascal, and the mainstream activity of C (and C++). Obviously C and C++ have good support, libraries and so on, but if we purely look at the design of the language...
In the past I learnt Pascal, and later had a go at C, and then C++ (though there were many languages I had a play with at least). And now, after all these years that I finally reread stuff on Pascal, and compare the design, the syntax, with that of C++'s (or C's), I am amazed to see how, well... "ugly" C's is, if that's the proper word.
Pascal's syntax is so elegant, clear, and more natural than C-likes'. It is also more difficult to make mistakes in it than it is to in C-likes' languages. It looks more structured and generally more pleasant to the eye -- though it might be subjective -- and I bet even people who absolutely know NOTHING of programming can make sense out of it when they see sample code, especially due to it being more descriptive with words instead of cryptic and symbolic signs.
Then there was Delphi at some point. It went down. People now generally either use C, C++, C#, Java, or of course those even higher languages and such.
It's a shame Pascal got pushed away, as I think it's not only a good language for teaching, but programming in general. Not that I'm an expert, but surely Pascal can be used for many good a thing as well just as C (and later when Pascal got more developed it could be the dominant mainstream language today)?
What is it really? Was/Is C (and later C++) really more powerful than Pascal? Why did Delphi get pushed away -- better corporate backing? In those older days, was it some kind of masochistic or "cool" thing for programmers to use C and/or C++?
Looking at the game industry, would or could Pascal have been a good language today?
Looking at systems programming, would or could Pascal have been a good language today?
Was Pascal's low-level access less good compared to C's?
Are there any other things noteworthy about the comparison between Pascal and C, C++?
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