Well, I have just started learning Pascal-- I downloaded a great tutorial and Borland TURBO Pascal 5.5. I like the look of the language so far... the (general) structure of C++ with the language-orientedness of BASIC... what is the general opinion about it? Does it have decent speed? Can something reasonably professional be done with it? Huh? Huh?
Tell me something! 
Because I really have no idea about how it is compared to other languages. I just want to know if it is worthwhile.
Do you know Empyrean??? Wizardlife coded this game in Pascal for school and it ROCKS...smooth gameplay and great gfx.....just ask him
Pascal was original designed as a theoretical language for teaching which is why it is easy to learn and program with. Languages themselves do not have a speed, they are simply a way of representing a program at a high level of abstraction, the compiler you are using will determine the speed of execution for your programs, do a google search to see what Pascal compilers are available. There should be no problem with creating something professional with Pascal, ask Wizardlife to show you some of his work with Pascal.
Pascal isnt widely used in industry or for practical programming anymore, mainly because it was designed as a teaching tool first and foremost. If you really like Pascal you could look at learning Delphi or Jade which are both OO languages that have Pascal-ish features and syntax. Even as a teaching tool, Pascal has all but disappeared because students (at least at tertiary level) are demanding to learn more realworld languages such as C and Java.
That said, if you like it, learn it. No harm can possibly come from learning another language, you will things about programming that you wouldnt learn from programming in Basic and it will make learning other languages in the future much easier.
Have fun.
Empyrean Homepage
Pascal is an easy bridge between QB and c++. Unfortunately the object support in it is awful, so you'll be pretty much stuck to procedural code, but you get pointers and data structures and whatever other yummies.
This page appears to have TP7 for download. But you will more than likely need the patch for the crt-bug. Google 'tppatch'.