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Oberon in all its variations has been so close for many years, yet it remains almost there.
Please permit me some observations. First the gripes, and then some suggestions. Maybe even a solution, if I'm not dreaming. If this doesn't get me banned from the list, I guess nothing will.
1. Amazing and appalling. We still have no safe, general-purpose, portable programming language in 2004! OMS says they are consulting, and have given up on language development. Well, what happened to Portos? Meanwhile, the Mars Rover uses a real-time OS w/ unprotected memory. It failed miserably. (I'm sure you can all list a lot more failures and dubious successes using popular languages and OS's.)
2. Ergo, there's big money in doing this right! Maybe there's also grant money available if someone is willing to take a really disciplined approach.
3. Some are talking about porting to C, or learning CP and then switching to C, etc., or trying in vain to write DLLs. Hmmm.... I too have a problem with mixed language programming, which I cannot support. I have thousands of lines of Borland Pascal and Fortran. Increasingly, it looks like I will also have to write in Java.
4. I love the Russian secret weapon presented by Fyodor Tkachov. Personally, I probably can't afford to write in CP and port to other languages, but it's probably not a bad idea. The bad idea is probably not writing in CP, but in porting to other languages.
5. Competition with other flavors of Oberon??? Are you sure that's a good idea? If anyone is really interested in Oberon, all the varieties ought to be put back together again. Oberon should be one language, not 20. OK, for special purposes, e.g. concurrent programming, you can have an extended version, but that's all. You should hammer on the guys at ETHZ and OMS to get their acts together.
6. Documentation and libraries. Amen, amen. Please add to it in a coherent fashion. The plans I have seen are outstanding and well motivated. But did you know there is a recent patent on a circular transportation facilitation device? This is true! As it is, you are all inventing the wheel separately.
7. One petty gripe: Tei doesn't like RESERVED WORDS in CAPITAL LETTERS. Although this IS personal preference, neither do I. mYvARIABLES lOOK fUNNY IF i lEAVE THE cAPS lOCK kEY ON aLL dAY. MyVariables look a lot better and my code is more readable without the caps lock key, AND I'M tired of HITTING the KEY all day LONG. Lower case reserved words are more practical and easy on the eye. So be sure to keep that F5 key or whatever it is. I also like colored code. It makes the comments so easy to read. Just my preference. I guess I can live without both if I have to.
Now, what is to keep anyone from doing it right? (1) Resources. (2) Intellectual rights. Maybe the open software solution is the answer. But whether open or closed, we all need assurance that this isn't a dead end before we commit lots of resources. As it is, you are totally dependent on OMS. Perhaps if they don't want to make it open source, at least they could put the code in escrow. It might also be helpful if they would agree to accept standards. They have a lot to gain, and probably little to lose.
Sincerely,
Rex Couture, Ph. D.
Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Campus Box 1169
Washington University in St. Louis
1 Brookings Dr.
St. Louis MO 63130
Voice: (314) 935-4194
Fax: (314) 935-7361
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Received on Mon Feb 16 2004 - 18:14:33 UTC