If you write a game that uses Direct3D, you can easily target Windows, XBox, and Windows Phone. If you write a game that uses OpenGL, then you can easily target all of the major desktop, mobile, and console platforms. If your game runs on a generation-old console, then it will run on current-generation mobiles as well. This gives you three markets: First release for high-end PCs, second for consoles, third for mobiles. You can get a solid revenue stream out of each one. You don't lose the Windows marked by choosing OpenGL, but you do lose every other market by using Direct3D.

That said, the APIs are so similar these days that you'll typically use some middleware to provide the abstraction. All of the important code is written in the shaders and these are much easier to port between GLSL and HLSL than they are to port between different GPUs and maintain performance.

Implementing this in the standard library means that the language needs to support pass-by-reference (which Pascal and C++ do, but C doesn't). This single feature does a lot to reduce readability. In C, I know that inc(x) is a function that does not modify the value of x, without reading any additional code[1]. In Pascal or C++, I need to look at the definition of inc() to know if x will be the same before and after the call.

An important idea at the core of readability for a language is the amount of code that I have to read to understand a single line. In any language that has pass-by-reference, this amount is larger than a language that doesn't. To achieve the same thing in C, I'd have to write inc(&x), and then everyone reading that code would know that x may be modified. (Note: the almost-equivalence of array and pointer types in C is a good counterexample where Pascal wins massively in readability).

[1] It could be a macro, but most coding conventions require macros that can't be used as if they were functions to be all-caps.

• Lines with more than 66 non-whitespace characters decrease readability.
• Statements with more than 66 non-whitespace characters are common in most programming languages.

This means that you end up either with lots of continued statements or lots of overly-long lines in Python. If you have the former, then it's hard to see the indentation. If you have the latter, then you can see the indentation but the overall readability suffers. This can be fixed by using tabs for semantic indentation and spaces for alignment and an editor that supports highlighting tabs, but the Python style guides tell you not to do this.

There are some simple things where C is far more readable to a moderately experienced programmer. Consider the beginning and ending of blocks. In pascal, these are signified by begin and end. When you look at a chunk of Pascal code, they can be hard to pick out because they're just words in a sea of words. In C, you use the { and } symbols. These are symmetrical and the human brain has spent a lot of time evolving to be trivially able to spot symmetry because symmetry normally means 'predator about to try to eat me'. You can very quickly spot a column that has a { at the top and a } somewhere later (much more easily if they're aligned together and there's nothing else on the line). There were some studies done in the '80s that confirmed this, though sadly a lot of C coding conventions specify brace placement in a way that reduces readability.

The main strength of Pascal is that it forces you to think more than C. If you don't write what you mean in Pascal, it usually fails to compile. C will happily do... something. This level of redundant verbosity makes Pascal both quite a frustrating language for experienced developers and a great language for teaching. I find that people who learned Pascal tend to write better C code than those that didn't, but neither group has a strong desire to write Pascal.

Also, that bit about anti-Pascal criticisms being outdated or due to the "wrong implementation" pretty much destroys any idea that it would be superior for "cross platform" development. The excuses for those misconceptions show why Pascal would have a hard time being useful for "cross platform" purposes.

What subset of "modern Pascal" do you have to restrict yourself to avoid those "problems".

Because people don't know anything about it, GM foods are safe? Is that the message?

That's akin to "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

Not to mention that they are bred only for one reason, to be hunted FOR SPORT! End that madness, now!

Well, yes, but what other purpose do politicians serve?

Future?

To give something and demand nothing in return? That's just so Un-American!

Well, there is a way. But my lawyer said it's still illegal. And it's still likely that someone would keep me from doing it forcefully.

I'll just wait 'til at least the latter doesn't apply anymore.

Get back under your bridge... troll.

If the technique weren't different, there would be no reason for the industry to astroturf over it. There would be no motivation for them to use you as a corporate tool.

Why the bickering about whether it's man made or natural? I honestly don't want to resolve the question on whether someone set my house on fire or whether lightning hit it while it's still burning, first I want it extinguished, then we can find out what caused it!

Wait, there's a left now in US politics? When did that happen?