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Some languages have more strengths (or more weaknesses) than others.

If you want to claim that every language is useful and good in its own special way, you may have to accept that COBOL is primarily good at being compatible with old systems based on COBOL, and Pascal is useful mainly for failing to teach computer programming in the 1980s.

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How did Pascal fail to teach computer programming in the '80's? (While we're at it, how does a programming language teach at all?) My impression is Pascal got replaced by Java in intro to CS courses.

How does a programming language teach at all?

Well, it doesn't alone however the concepts that are available in a programming language constrain your thought process. Java/Pascal is much more constraining than something like Oz/Scheme.

Teaching languages are stripped down on purpose, so I don't consider that a valid criticism. Pascal was fine for teaching structured programming in its day.

Apple had a lot of Pascal code that worked well. It's still used for a lot of embedded code and there is a strong argument for using a flavor of Pascal when building operating systems.

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