Pascal is based on the ALGOL programming language and named in honor of the
French
mathematician and philosopher
Blaise Pascal. Wirth subsequently developed the
Modula-2
and
Oberon, languages similar to Pascal, and earlier, also the language
Euler.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Initially, Pascal was largely, but not exclusively, intended to teach
students structured programming. Generations of students have "cut their teeth"
on Pascal as an introductory language in undergraduate courses. Variants of
Pascal have also frequently been used for everything from research projects to
PC games and embedded systems. Newer Pascal compilers exist which are widely
used.
We thought long and hard about this question. Pascal is a basic and easy to
learn language. Using it teaches you important programming principles which can
be applied to most other programming languages. It will also teach you skills to
think through ta sks and also other skills which can be applied to many areas,
including some outside computing, such as task management etc. But the most
important reason to learn pascal is because it's fun and interesting.
