The best comparison I could make with Pascal is by comparing it to NixOS...
Some people love NixOS and can't do without it -- but many other people will not need it and not use it and see no purpose for it in this lifetime...
It's an acquired taste.
We might ask a broader philosophical question, and that is:
Why should people want to become computer programmers in this day and age -- if there's enough pre-existing software to suit any need for software?
In other words, why become a video game programmer -- if every possible video game that you could ever want, already exists?
Or, why become a plumber -- if there are tons of plumbers and plumbing services are plentiful and inexpensive?
Perhaps you are asking me why I individually value Pascal as a language...
If this is your question, then my answer is a historical one:
Pascal (in its earliest historical incarnations) and C (also, in its earliest historical incarnations -- which I also equally value) -- are descendants of Algol, siblings in the "Algol Tree" -- languages descended from Algol, which descended from Fortran...
We see in these early languages a shift from assembler code to a somewhat human intelligible symbolic language with very few symbols (the keywords, in effect), and that language is deterministic (compare to today's AI, which can use an almost unlimited set of symbols and is usually non-deterministic -- the same input can result in multiple differing outputs).
In summation, Pascal (at least, early Pascal, not newer variants like Object Pascal), at least to someone with a historical interest of how things evolved -- is an important step between "pure" (or relatively pure) assemblers -- and higher level languages.
You know, we have (or are going to have in the future) -- the same problem with Lisp, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python -- that we do/did with Pascal...
Which is this:
The current-day problem: Why should I learn (Assembler, Fortran, Algol, Pascal, C, etc.) when (Lisp, JavaScript, Java, Python, C++) -- is so much more functional, and does so much more for me?
The future problem: Why should I learn Lisp, JavaScript, Java, Python, C++ -- when ChatGPT (or other AI) -- does so much more for me?
?
Anyway, I'm glad you originally asked me to pitch Pascal to you...
That's because I wouldn't have seen the broader pattern of where society may be going in the future had I not written this...
> Perhaps you are asking me why I individually value Pascal as a language...
Yes, that's what I was asking. Or rather:
> Some people love NixOS and can't do without it
... and then they'll usually have specific reasons why they can't do without it.
I didn't mean it as "why should I use Pascal now when there are so many better languages out there," on the contrary. If you're gonna dabble in a niche language, it might as well be a historically significant one.
I'm not quite convinced AI will supplant programming languages, though. Search engines, perhaps. And it'll become part of image processing and artsy tools.
Some people love NixOS and can't do without it -- but many other people will not need it and not use it and see no purpose for it in this lifetime...
It's an acquired taste.
We might ask a broader philosophical question, and that is:
Why should people want to become computer programmers in this day and age -- if there's enough pre-existing software to suit any need for software?
In other words, why become a video game programmer -- if every possible video game that you could ever want, already exists?
Or, why become a plumber -- if there are tons of plumbers and plumbing services are plentiful and inexpensive?
Perhaps you are asking me why I individually value Pascal as a language...
If this is your question, then my answer is a historical one:
Pascal (in its earliest historical incarnations) and C (also, in its earliest historical incarnations -- which I also equally value) -- are descendants of Algol, siblings in the "Algol Tree" -- languages descended from Algol, which descended from Fortran...
We see in these early languages a shift from assembler code to a somewhat human intelligible symbolic language with very few symbols (the keywords, in effect), and that language is deterministic (compare to today's AI, which can use an almost unlimited set of symbols and is usually non-deterministic -- the same input can result in multiple differing outputs).
In summation, Pascal (at least, early Pascal, not newer variants like Object Pascal), at least to someone with a historical interest of how things evolved -- is an important step between "pure" (or relatively pure) assemblers -- and higher level languages.
You know, we have (or are going to have in the future) -- the same problem with Lisp, C++, Java, JavaScript, Python -- that we do/did with Pascal...
Which is this:
The current-day problem: Why should I learn (Assembler, Fortran, Algol, Pascal, C, etc.) when (Lisp, JavaScript, Java, Python, C++) -- is so much more functional, and does so much more for me?
The future problem: Why should I learn Lisp, JavaScript, Java, Python, C++ -- when ChatGPT (or other AI) -- does so much more for me?
?
Anyway, I'm glad you originally asked me to pitch Pascal to you...
That's because I wouldn't have seen the broader pattern of where society may be going in the future had I not written this...
So, great question!
Hope I answered it, at least somewhat...