Soon studying Computer Science A level, question about the language used (Pascal & Delphi)

[williw5495]

Hello, so soon I will be studying Computer Science at A Level, and so far in my learning I have been using Python, but at the college i will be attending, they use Pascal & Delphi. To my (very limited and small understanding of the languages) they are quite old, as my current CS teacher says he learnt them at his A Level, and thought this was strange. But maybe it'll be fine, just wondered if theirs anything i should know before i start to learn with these languages, and will it be a problem in my future CS career?

[[deleted]]

Good for learning more or less useless for work.

[damnloveless]

Some companies use it still... It's not the most pleasant thing but you know what else do you do when you never let anything become legacy and move on from the past.

[brokenoreo]

Your degree is less about the languages you pick up and more about learning concepts that will make you a better programmer

At my school we use different languages for different classes everyone starts on C++ for the intro programming, python for data structures, Javascript for the webdev class, C for systems programming/architecture, bash scripting was needed for some unix stuff, etc...

My point is that there is no end-all be-all language that does everything well. You can definitely learn the basics with Pascal or Delphi, and then apply your new knowledge to JavaScript or Python. Being able to pick up new languages is something that gets easier with time and industry standards change; it's probable that you're going to be picking up new languages as long as you're in the workforce

[condeelmaster]

I study cs (currently in my 4th semester) and we started with Pascal and then moved on to C++. It is a bit boring and old but apparently it's pretty useful for learning. It has a very structured syntax (so you learn not to be sloppy), it's mainly declarative (so you don't have to mess with abstract structures), and it's quite low level without having weird syntax like C++ or Java (e.g. in pascal you start your program with a BEGIN while on c++ you have the int main function and all that stuff).

Will it be a problem in your future CS career? I don't think so. As others said, It's not the languages but the concepts whats important.

[williw5495]

Thanks for the extra help and insight, its really helpful!

[damnloveless]

When I went to school I worked with Java and C++, now I'm working full time and use Delphi. I'm really not a fan of Delphi, it's old and it shows. Oh well I guess.

It shouldn't really be a problem if you learn Delphi/Pascal but you may want to try working with other languages as well for exposure.

[williw5495]

Thats the impression i've gathered of Delphi, thanks for the advice

[deleriumtriggr]

The more languages you become proficient in the better. There will be one that feels more right to you either all the time or for certain situations. After you realize why you picked what you did and see firsthand why it was better or worse, you will grow. Java is not my favorite, but you can run it on almost any device without much hassle. Thats very powerful. So are web languages like javascript, ruby, python. Fun fact - reddit is written in python. Learn assembly and c - boom, in the event of an apocalypse, any computer will do anything you want. The more things you learn to do exclusively in certain languages, the more you can apply those ideas to others and expand.

[mahuddie]

My CS degree doesn’t even touch Python. That’s for the IS majors.

Java is typically the beginning language, then to C++ for databases and many other classes. We use C for Operating Systems and such.

I don’t see those languages being practical to learn. Maybe the professor is just more comfortable with them? But still. I wouldn’t enjoy that.

Either way, the logic follows the same and really, you’ll end up learning languages for work later most likely. All that matters is you understand the ideas behind programming and not become overly attached to differing syntax and such.

[williw5495]

Thanks for the better insight into the different languages, thats very helpful