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Pascal

Pascal is a strongly typed programming language that was developed by Professor Niklaus Wirth in 1970. Strongly typed programming language is the one in which the data types like integer, real numbers etc, are predefined and all the constant and the variables defined in the given program must be one of the data types. Pascal was developed based on the programming language ALGOL. The programming language is given the name "Pascal" in the honor of the famous mathematician Blaise Pascal.

Pascal was developed with two goals they are: (a) to teach structured programming to the students (b) to create a language whose implementations are reliable and highly efficient, which was successfully surpassed. Structured programming is a subset of procedural programming in which the statements are organized in a specific way to minimize error. UCSD Pascal is one of the most popular Pascal’s of 1970s and early 1980s.

Variants of Pascal
In 1983 Pascal acquired standardization, ISO 7185. This is also known as unextended Pascal.

In 1989, further revisions were made to the existing Pascal standards to amend the errors and vagueness. As result there was an extension to the language, which was standardized in 1991. The improved Pascal was thus called extended Pascal or Pascal ISO10206.  The concept of modules, value constructors, enhanced string capabilities and complex numbers were introduced in this standardization.

In 1993, object oriented support was added to the extended Pascal.

In 1995, the first version of Delphi was released.

Pascal is still popular as a powerful tool for programming.  It is also a viable language for commercial, industrial, scientific applications. Pascal is available for different platforms namely Windows, Macintosh, Linux, OS/2, Tru64 Unix, FreeBSD UNIX, OpenVMS Vax and OpenVMS Alpha.

The commercial versions of Pascal include

  • Borland Pascal or Turbo Pascal - This was created for MS-DOS.
  • Delphi - This was created for Windows.
  • Compaq Pascal
  • THINK Pascal and
  • CodeWarrior Pascal

Open source Pascal compilers are also available they are

  • Freepascal - http://www.freepascal.org/
  • GNU Pascal - http://www.gnu-pascal.de/

Categories

Tutorials and help

Compilers

Source Code

Tools

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Links
  • Pascal Starting Page
    A good starting point for information about Pascal. Links to FAQs, random-number routines, and optimization, as well as information specific to the Turbo Pascal compiler.
    http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/pascal.htm
  • Pascal in the Workplace Forum
    Technical support forums and mutual help system for programmers. [Tek-Tips]
    http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=935
  • paxPascal
    Implements a subset of Object Pascal and extends it with a few extra features, including namespaces, dynamic record and array types, inheritance for record types. It's one of the languages of the paxScript scripting engine which allows the cross-language integration.
    http://www.paxscript.com/
  • Programmers Heaven - Pascal programming zone
    Sourcecode, articles and discussionboards.
    http://www.programmersheaven.com/zone24/
  • Turbo Pascal Programmers Page
    A collection of links to tutorials, web sites, books, source code, newsgroups.
    http://www.devq.net/pascal/
  • Pascal Central
    Technical information, source code, forums and links. Focuses on the Macintosh development platform, but includes some good information about Pascal in general.
    http://www.pascal-central.com/
  • How To Code Pascal
    A long paper on how to write good Pascal code based on the 4 P's of programming: philosophy, performance, problems, and portability.
    http://www.allegro.com/papers/htpp.html
  • FAQ Pascal
    Answers on frequently asked questions in Turbo Pascal.
    http://borlpasc.narod.ru/english/faqs/ogl.htm
  • IRC #pascal.no
    FAQ, people, operators, rules. Also contain sources and tools.
    http://loonix.technigga.net/
  • Khaan's Place
    Source code, tutorial, chat room, help page, and links to pages about Turbo Pascal.
    http://www.algonet.se/~khaan/
  • Klaus Hartnegg Pascal Page
    Information about solving Runtime error 200 in Borland Pascal and breaking the 64KB limit. Also source code, mostly interfaces with hardware.
    http://www.brain.uni-freiburg.de/~klaus/pascal/
  • A Brief History of Pascal
    Article describes basic developments of Algol, Pascal, Modula-2, Simula, Smalltalk, Cedar, Oberon, Component Pascal, BlackBox Component Builder. By Oberon Microsystems, Inc.
    http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/language/oberon/obhist/history.htm

 

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