[alwillis]

After learning BASIC in high school, as a CS student in the early 80's, my intro to computer science classes were taught in Pascal.

In college, we used DECWriter paper-based terminals and IBM 3270 terminals to write code. Our programs were batch processed on the school's IBM mainframe.

What's interesting to me is how well Pascal conceptually has held up with the current trend towards strongly typed languages.

When I look at Pascal source code today, it's remarkable to me how clean the syntax is. If our industry wasn't so driven by the hottest language/stack/framework that seemingly changes every 6-12 months, modern Pascal would still be a viable choice today.

Battlestar Galactica fans know the story line of how computers weren't allowed to be networked because that's what allowed the Cylons to gain access and nearly wipeout the human race.

In my fan fiction world, Free Pascal is the language the Colonies would use due to the Cylons exploiting the buffer overflows and the other issues of C/C++.

Kinda like: would we go the same route knowing what we know now about how using C for (nearly) everything turned out with vulnerabilities, etc.