I find the claim that bwk 'failed' suspect, since I have a copy of "Software Tools in Pascal" on my shelf right now.

Almost the entirety of his criticisms were accurate in 1981 and addressed even five years later, and many of them say more about his assumptions than they do about Pascal. For instance, the implicit assumption that arrays must be the natural way to deal with strings rings hollow; some years later, "I wish it were as easy to deal with strings in C as it is in Pascal" would be a common refrain.

I think bwk is one of the best people in the industry, both technically and personally, but I feel this essay is an artifact of its time more than a lasting commentary on Pascal as a whole.

Had we bothered with Modula-2, released in 1978, where Niklaus Wirth took care to fix all ISO Pascal issues from 1976, we would not have such problems.

Also he has a pretty much dual approach to his criticism, while having Pascal dialects is a flaw, apparently having C dialects is a plus.