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Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

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Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#71

Post by swiftcoder »

MisterTea wrote: post #70
swiftcoder wrote: post #51

I was about 5 links deep before I figured out what Oberon actually was. A high-level explainer at the top of the readme would be really nice for folks who aren't already familiar with the Oberon ecosystem

I am surprised the top comment on an HN post is someone asking what Oberon is (especially someone who have programmer in their name.) Oberon is not only a programming language, but an entire software and hardware computing system built from the ground up to be as minimal as possible by famed computer scientist Niklaus Wirth. Simple RISC CPU, Oberon compiler, OS And Windowing system. The windowing system was famously…

I mean, in all fairness, I wasn't even born when Oberon started development

Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#72

Post by luismedel »

loneboat wrote: post #64
Rochus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good opportunity to consult wikipedia once again ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon_(operating_system) ), or to ask your trusted LLM.

Pasting a Wikipedia link or saying "just ask an LLM" only helps out the one instance of someone not knowing. I did the same thing as the OP you're replying to. They're right - a brief summary in the readme would be a near zero-effort permanent fix to people who stumble on your project and dont know what Oberon is.

Honest question. Where does one stop clarifying things?

Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#74

Post by linguae »

MisterTea wrote: post #70
swiftcoder wrote: post #51

I was about 5 links deep before I figured out what Oberon actually was. A high-level explainer at the top of the readme would be really nice for folks who aren't already familiar with the Oberon ecosystem

I am surprised the top comment on an HN post is someone asking what Oberon is (especially someone who have programmer in their name.) Oberon is not only a programming language, but an entire software and hardware computing system built from the ground up to be as minimal as possible by famed computer scientist Niklaus Wirth. Simple RISC CPU, Oberon compiler, OS And Windowing system. The windowing system was famously…

I'm quite familiar with Project Oberon as a professor who studies operating systems and programming languages, but even though this is Hacker News where many of us are familiar with the project, I'm not surprised that there are also many readers who are not familiar with it, since Oberon does not have the userbase of much more popular programming languages and operating systems, and it's not even covered in many undergraduate courses on those topics. Most undergraduate OS courses are Unix-focused, centering on either Linux, Minix, or xv6. The Oberon OS is certainly not Unix. Programming languages and compiler courses tend to vary, but I haven't seen one that uses Oberon.

Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#75

Post by wk_end »

luismedel wrote: post #72
loneboat wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pasting a Wikipedia link or saying "just ask an LLM" only helps out the one instance of someone not knowing. I did the same thing as the OP you're replying to. They're right - a brief summary in the readme would be a near zero-effort permanent fix to people who stumble on your project and dont know what Oberon is.

Honest question. Where does one stop clarifying things?

One of the basic principles of communication is that you have a mental model of the person you're communicating with and are phrasing what you want them to understand in terms that you think they'll understand. So whenever you're writing something - anything - you should be writing with a target audience in mind, and stop explaining right around the point where you believe that your target audience doesn't need further explanation.

Of course it's normal for there to be a disconnect between your assumptions about your target audience and reality. In a real conversation this happens all the time and it's no big deal. When something's written and especially when it's printed it can be a bit more of a problem, so maybe better to err on the side of over-explaining. Also a good reason to have editors and proofreaders. But I'm rambling a bit.

In this case, the link was posted to HN by the author, so the author might have had "average HN reader" in mind. Oberon never really achieved success outside of a particular niche in academia, so unless they went to ETH Zurich I personally wouldn't expect someone - even someone in tech - to know about it.

Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#76

Post by MisterTea »

linguae wrote: post #74
MisterTea wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised the top comment on an HN post is someone asking what Oberon is (especially someone who have programmer in their name.) Oberon is not only a programming language, but an entire software and hardware computing system built from the ground up to be as minimal as possible by famed computer scientist Niklaus Wirth. Simple RISC CPU, Oberon compiler, OS And Windowing system. The windowing system was famously…

I'm quite familiar with Project Oberon as a professor who studies operating systems and programming languages, but even though this is Hacker News where many of us are familiar with the project, I'm not surprised that there are also many readers who are not familiar with it, since Oberon does not have the userbase of much more popular programming languages and operating systems, and it's not even covered in many unde…

I am not a CS student nor have I had a "programming job." I just enjoy computing which leads me to explore the different design philosophies so I read and tinker. Currently I am learning Ada, itself based on Wirth's Pascal so I am on a bit of a Wirthian kick.

Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#77

Post by luismedel »

wk_end wrote: post #75
luismedel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question. Where does one stop clarifying things?

One of the basic principles of communication is that you have a mental model of the person you're communicating with and are phrasing what you want them to understand in terms that you think they'll understand. So whenever you're writing something - anything - you should be writing with a target audience in mind, and stop explaining right around the point where you believe that your target audience doesn't need furth…

Exactly. I knew what the link was about and didn't study at ETH Zurich. I (mistakenly?) think Oberon is that kind of "roots knowledge" shared between all of us, like Lisp or Forth. That's why I asked when one should stop clarifying things. Maybe some people need to know what a compiler os, or a VM, or a windowing system, or ...whatever.

What I mean is that having so much info at the toe of our tips, comments like "you should put a link about what this thing is" are needless.

Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#78

Post by nxpnsv »

swiftcoder wrote: post #71
MisterTea wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am surprised the top comment on an HN post is someone asking what Oberon is (especially someone who have programmer in their name.) Oberon is not only a programming language, but an entire software and hardware computing system built from the ground up to be as minimal as possible by famed computer scientist Niklaus Wirth. Simple RISC CPU, Oberon compiler, OS And Windowing system. The windowing system was famously…

I mean, in all fairness, I wasn't even born when Oberon started development

It's not just you. I started coding in the 80s. Never heard of Oberon.

Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#79

Post by swiftcoder »

luismedel wrote: post #77
wk_end wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the basic principles of communication is that you have a mental model of the person you're communicating with and are phrasing what you want them to understand in terms that you think they'll understand. So whenever you're writing something - anything - you should be writing with a target audience in mind, and stop explaining right around the point where you believe that your target audience doesn't need furth…

Exactly. I knew what the link was about and didn't study at ETH Zurich. I (mistakenly?) think Oberon is that kind of "roots knowledge" shared between all of us, like Lisp or Forth. That's why I asked when one should stop clarifying things. Maybe some people need to know what a compiler os, or a VM, or a windowing system, or ...whatever. What I mean is that having so much info at the toe of our tips, comments like "yo…

The problem with this is that there are so many branches of tech from 40 years ago that any one person is unlikely to be familiar with all of them.

I'm plenty familiar with the whole Modula 3 -> NextSTEP branch of this little tree, but the Oberon branch isn't something I've run into before.

Re: Show HN: Oberon System 3 runs natively on Raspberry Pi 3 (with ready SD card)

#80

Post by nothinkjustai »

wk_end wrote: post #75
luismedel wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question. Where does one stop clarifying things?

One of the basic principles of communication is that you have a mental model of the person you're communicating with and are phrasing what you want them to understand in terms that you think they'll understand. So whenever you're writing something - anything - you should be writing with a target audience in mind, and stop explaining right around the point where you believe that your target audience doesn't need furth…

Sorry, can you explain what ETH Zurich is? I’m not familiar with that term.
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