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'''Pascal''' is an [[Imperative programming|imperative]] and [[Procedural programming|procedural]] [[programming language]], designed by [[Niklaus Wirth]] as a small, efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using [[structured programming]] and [[data structure|data structuring]]. It is named after French mathematician, philosopher and physicist [[Blaise Pascal]] for [[Pascal's calculator|his calculator]].{{efn|In an issue of [[Electronics (magazine)|Electronics]] in 1978, Wirth explained why he named the language after Blaise Pascal: "Actually, I am neither capable of fully understanding his philosophy nor of appreciating his religious exaltations. Pascal, however, was (perhaps one of) the first to invent and construct a device that we now classify as a digital computer."<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Wirth |first=Niklaus |author-link=Niklaus Wirth |date=1978-12-21 |title=Obeisance to Pascal, inventor |magazine=[[Electronics (magazine)|Electronics]] |publisher=Dan McMillan |editor1-first=Kemp |editor1-last=Anderson |department=Readers' comments}}</ref> }}
Pascal was developed on the pattern of the [[ALGOL 60]] language. Wirth was involved in the process to improve the language as part of the [[ALGOL X]] efforts and proposed a version named [[ALGOL W]]. This was not accepted, and the ALGOL X process bogged down. In 1968, Wirth decided to abandon the ALGOL X process and further improve ALGOL W, releasing this as Pascal in 1970.
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Despite initial criticisms, Pascal continued to evolve, and most of Kernighan's points do not apply to versions of the language which were enhanced to be suitable for commercial product development, such as Borland's [[Turbo Pascal]]. As Kernighan predicted in his article, most of the extensions to fix these issues were incompatible from compiler to compiler. Since the early 1990s, however, most of the varieties seem condensed into two categories: ISO and Borland-like. Extended Pascal addresses many of these early criticisms. It supports variable-length strings, variable initialization, separate compilation, short-circuit Boolean operators, and default (<code>otherwise</code>) clauses for case statements.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://pascal-central.com/ppl/chapter3.html#Extended |title=Extended Pascal |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018023934/http://www.pascal-central.com/ppl/chapter3.html |archive-date=2015-10-18 |access-date=2015-10-17 }}</ref>
==Notes==
{{notelist}}
==See also==
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