title: What are Pascal Strings?
body: <p>Are they named after the programming language, or the mathematician?</p>
  
  <p>What are the defining characteristics of Pascal strings? In <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_(computer_science)#Length-prefixed" rel="noreferrer">Wikipedia's article on strings</a> it seems like the defining characteristic is storing the length of the string in the first byte. In another article I get the impression that <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20930664/how-are-pascal-strings-represented-in-memory">the memory layout of the strings</a> is also important.</p>
  
  <p>While perusing an unrelated SO thread somebody mentioned that <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/492384/how-to-find-the-sizeofa-pointer-pointing-to-an-array#comment3358256_492428">Pascal strings make Excel fast</a>. What are the advantages of Pascal strings over null-terminated strings? Or more generally, in what situations do Pascal strings excel?</p>
  
  <p>Are Pascal strings implemented in any other languages?</p>
  
  <p>Last, do I capitalize both words ("Pascal Strings") or only the first ("Pascal strings")? I'm a technical writer...</p>