Free Pascal Compiler Version 3.0.0
In China, Pascal is a very popular language for high school beginners of Olympiad in Informatics (see <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ioinformatics.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ioinformatics.org&#x2F;</a> for the international competition). And it&#x27;s probably the most used language in the provincial level competition, National Olympiad in Informatics in Province. Yet those who reach the national level will likely switch to C++ for many reasons (STL, performance, etc.).<p>I myself started programming in this way. And even now I&#x27;m glad that Pascal was my first language. It&#x27;s an excellent educational language, which was its original purpose. It doesn&#x27;t have &quot;absurd&quot; syntax; keywords are long but straightforward; and its type system is static and strong, which I believe is something that a serious programmer has to master.<p>By the way, although probably not as powerful as Delphi (especially in terms of widgets), Lazarus will give you a taste of the Rapid Application Development, which Delphi was famous for.