The Pascal Programming Language
Bill Catambay, Pascal Developer

The Pascal Programming Language
by Bill Catambay

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Pascal has evolved since its origin in the 1970's. A full demonstration of just how much the language has evolved would require a study of the Extended Pascal standard, the Object Pascal report, and the Compaq Pascal Language Reference manual. My own work in Pascal has spanned the last fifteen years, and I've witnessed the evolution of the language first hand.

While the evolved Pascal goes far beyond what Wirth originally put forth, it does not sacrifice the original design concept: an elegant programming language that makes it easier to write correct programs and harder to write incorrect ones.

Programming languages like APL taught me long ago to avoid seduction by a language which offers a lot of power while sacrificing readable and manageable code. I have programmed in a dozen languages in the last two decades, and I have enjoyed most of them. But when I need to be productive and when I need to establish a strong code base in a timely manner, a code base that I won't find painful to revisit, the language I use is Pascal.

Interview With a Pascal Architect, by John Reagan & Bill Catambay, 2000

Pascal From the Quality Perspective, by Ron Drake & Bill Catambay, 2000

Fundamentals of Data Structures in Pascal, by Ellis Horowitz, 1999

Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart, by Elliott Koffman, 1997

Great Papers in Computer Science, by Phillip Laplante, 1996

Designing Pascal Solutions: Case Studies Using Data Structures, by M. Clancy, 1996

Pascal Standards FAQ,by John Reagan, 1995

DEC Pascal Language Reference Manual, by Digital Equipment Corporation, 1993

Oh! Pascal!, by Doug Cooper and Michael Clancy, 1993

Object-Oriented Extensions to Pascal, by Technical Committee X3J9, 1993

ISO 7185: Unextended Pascal Standards, by ISO, 1990

ISO 10206: Extended Pascal Standards, by ISO, 1990

Condensed Pascal, by Doug Cooper, 1987

An Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving with Pascal, by G. Michael Schneider, Steven W. Weingart, and David M. Perlman, 1982

Pascal: An Introduction to Methodical Programming, by W. Findlay & D. Watt, 1978

An Axiomatic Definition of the Programming Language Pascal, by C. A. R. Hoare and Niklaus Wirth, Acta Informatica, Vol. 2, pp. 335-355, 1973.