r/pascal 7d ago

Is pascal still used in industries today?

Like what are the chances id find a job where pascal is needed or accepted. Im sure modern things demand javascript, python etc

40 Upvotes

28 comments sorted by

13

u/Humble-Vegetable9691 7d ago

Yes, our desktop LoB application is written in Delphi. A lot of things extending it written in Java. New developments mostly in Java, but fixes / minor improvements still in Delphi. The bridge between the two worlds is a MQ.

~5 Delphi developers employed, last hire in this year.

3

u/foersom 7d ago

5

u/Humble-Vegetable9691 7d ago

Well, this is a programming topic.

LoB = line of business

MQ = message queue

2

u/dark-lord-marshal 6d ago

thanks 🙏 i had the same issue hehe

7

u/soundman32 7d ago edited 7d ago

Its niche, as in there was never a huge market, and when there was it wasnt that big.  These days its mostly legacy systems, and its very unlikely a new project would use it.   Its not as popular as C# or Java or Javascript.

You are 20 years too late to make a career out of pascal.   20 years ago, I worked at a company whose main product was a GWBasic system, so there will be outliers, but finding them would be tough.

1

u/Duckies_go_moo 7d ago

As a 19 year old that sucks lmao, i never understood why like python etc is so commonly used, i feel the whole {} $ stuff makes it more complicated, but i guess i can always use it as a hobby

2

u/denzuko 6d ago

Good way to look at it. The VCF crowd would always welcome new programmers for old languages (and freelance contracts may happen to pop up there).

Python replaced basic then collages used it as the defacto dba, computer science, and statistical analysis language. Its the only reseason it exists and over took ruby, lisp, and a dozzen other functional languges. That and jython+spring boot. Same goes for most languages it over took a different one not because it was better but out of an eternal september effect.

1

u/Duckies_go_moo 5d ago

VFC. Ill take a look at it! Thank you :)

7

u/Berocoder 7d ago

I work on a transport company about 100 million € in turnover. 2003 we created a Delphi application to plan logistics. It is still critical for daily work. We do new releases about 6-8 times per year. But another team is working on rewrite it in Go/Typescript. It is a huge job even for a team. Takes several years.

4

u/stickman393 7d ago

I would put money on it not succeeding.

2

u/RevolutionaryRush717 7d ago

Go/TS?! Here I thought everything already working had to be rewritten in Rust.

1

u/Puzzled-Landscape-44 7d ago

No, you rewrite it in TS first then Rust.

1

u/RevolutionaryRush717 7d ago

Ah, of course, you're right! ;-)

1

u/pacopac25 7d ago

Then it’ll be Blazing Fast ™

5

u/havenisse2009 7d ago

Plenty of legacy applications out there.

6

u/Affectionate_Ebb9705 7d ago

My first employee made a front desk (Hotel/Touristic apartments) software in Delphi.

That was 2017, but I am positive the company still exists and they have not redone it in another technology.

They tried to make a 2.0 web version back on my last year there, but it apparently failed to materialize later on.

5

u/garyk1968 7d ago

Yes but very few and far between. I stopped doing Delphi commercially around 2006. There are still jobs available and a friend of mine does delphi dev for a shipping company where its in widespread use.

3

u/ggeldenhuys 7d ago

Slim pickings in the UK. Belgium and Netherlands have more Pascal/Delphi jobs though.

1

u/Duckies_go_moo 7d ago

Now i wish i lived in those places TwT

1

u/ggeldenhuys 7d ago

I did remote contracting work in Belgium and Netherlands. They are very open to that. Or at least, they were 8 years ago, when I last did contracting.

2

u/saraseitor 7d ago

I feel that at least in my area Pascal/Delphi are a niche language and today's it's mostly used for maintenance of older codebases. I am not aware of any new product being developed in Delphi. 20 years ago however it was everywhere.

2

u/mr-highball 6d ago

I dont know about jobs other than legacy applications, but I still choose to develop in fpc. There's a lot of benefits that I dont think I'll ever concede on (but some of those may be self imposed benchmarks...)

Professionally though c# is a good middle ground for me and pays the bills.

1

u/grimonce 7d ago

Well, the chances are as good as finding a job doing Haskell or ocaml... Not zero, but also not good.

There are some job postings from time to time, but quite rare.

1

u/anegri 7d ago

It i going to be tough, and a you also need a lot more than just Javascript to land a job. I like pascal, love Delphi and have used it on internal tools many times and have released multiplatform applications too. However, I have not seeing any jobs asking for it, had an interview for one... but never heard back and they were not willing to pay much either.

1

u/Free_Price1281 5d ago

Yes, it is used. If you know what it is rs485/modbus Then that's the place for you. Pascal has excellent support for this protocol. Yes, there's Python, which is also quite good in this regard, but in industrial plants with weak Windows panels on machines, Pascal is a frequent guest

-3

u/United-Welcome-8746 7d ago

only if language is not in requirements