> So, i generally considered Pascal a dead language.<p>Delphi/Object Pascal never went away, but rather it was targeted by various competitors in arguably their misinformation campaigns against it, in attempts to sweep it out of the way. Pascal/Object Pascal was going up against languages like C, C++, C#, etc... Languages that were promoted by powerful American companies like AT&T and Microsoft (to name a few). Even calling Pascal a "dead language", is indicative of how relatively successful the negative media propaganda was and is.<p>Pascal transformed into Object Pascal, but unlike say C's relationship to C++, Pascal and Object Pascal is much more closely aligned. This is reflected in how Object Pascal can be written, and with its most popular compilers (Free Pascal and Delphi). Outside of the USA, Borland and then Embarcadero has continually maintained a significant presence in many school systems. So while various Americans might have been tricked into thinking the language died off (especially with odd websites continually claiming its dead), others around the world have been introduced to Delphi, Turbo Pascal, Free Pascal/Lazarus, or PascalABC as their first programming language. The ton of Pascal/Object Pascal books that were written, and some new ones still coming out, also makes it much easier to teach.<p>So, what is happening, is that various people are rediscovering Object Pascal and are surprised it's still a significantly used language. Sometimes, people only just realizing that Delphi (the compiler/IDE), is using a dialect of Object Pascal. The TIOBE Index has been showing Object Pascal hovering around the #15 rank for years. Meaning Object Pascal, is just as alive or successful as notables like Go, Swift, Ruby, Rust, Lua, etc... Another element about this, is thinking that if a language is not in the top 5, then it doesn't really exist or has failed. That's also not how things work nor realistic thinking. There are thousands of languages, so making it even to the top 50, is both a struggle and an accomplishment by itself. Object Pascal, has stayed near the top for a long while, thus demonstrating its an all time success and great.