to CS major ppl: did you guys have to take Pascal? how useful is it later on?

andylawcc

Lifer
Mar 9, 2000
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in my school, Pascal is not a requirement, (actually, Pascal is taken out from the cirriculum totally). But I do can take it elsewhere, do I need it? (I know for other school Pascal and Cobel are requirements)

some said it is not needed but preferred, just like knowing DOS still kinda help in these Windows days.
 

rangeLife

Senior member
Apr 25, 2001
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I would say no. It would be more benificial to use the time you would have spent learning Pascal into learning more about a more relevant language (ie: Java, C/C++, Perl, etc...)


(flashbacks to the FS off topic board...)
 

rangeLife

Senior member
Apr 25, 2001
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I used to post under theCEO. But not for a long time. Blame it on moving away from my campus Internet connection and back to a 28.8 :disgust: for the summer.
 

dc

Diamond Member
Nov 26, 1999
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i remember theCEO

andy, don't take pascal. waste of time. :)
 

perry

Diamond Member
Apr 7, 2000
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At Georgia Tech, they switched from Pascal to Java for the second computer class a few years ago. Also, IIRC, they switched the AP Computer Science exam from Pascal to C around 97.

Pascal is a waste of time these days. In my job hunts, I haven't seen a single place asking for Pascal programmers.
 

dc

Diamond Member
Nov 26, 1999
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my internet connection was gone for a week. :(

stupid school, i went over the bandwidth limit so they decided to give me a 7 day timeout. :( punks.
 

iamwiz82

Lifer
Jan 10, 2001
30,772
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my school require PASCAL or FORTRAN for most majors, other than CS, which requires java, C++, software engineering, etc.
 

hans007

Lifer
Feb 1, 2000
20,212
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i took pascal in high school for AP CS (before they switched to c++). I took C++ also. Its useful, its a fairly decent language, and its a really good one to start with since its more english like than c++. Its not too useful in the real world anymore though, except lots of old EE profs use it to illustrate algorithms since i think its the language of their time.