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Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

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Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#11

Post by sedatk »

Blammar wrote: post #6
sedatk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also upset at Niklaus Wirth because how he sensationalized Dijkstra's article "A Case Against the Goto Statement" by taking the liberty to change its title to "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", causing a lifelong disproportionate stigma against goto and relevant programming constructs like switch/case, break, continue, etc. Dijkstra had never intended to take such a purist stance against Goto. I also mention th…

? That was Edsger Dijkstra's article, if I recall correctly. The standard joke is "Europeans refer to him by reference, as Nicklaus Wirth, and Americans - by value, as Nickel's Worth."

Yes my bad. Edited, thanks!

Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#12

Post by pdw »

Blammar wrote: post #6
sedatk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also upset at Niklaus Wirth because how he sensationalized Dijkstra's article "A Case Against the Goto Statement" by taking the liberty to change its title to "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", causing a lifelong disproportionate stigma against goto and relevant programming constructs like switch/case, break, continue, etc. Dijkstra had never intended to take such a purist stance against Goto. I also mention th…

? That was Edsger Dijkstra's article, if I recall correctly. The standard joke is "Europeans refer to him by reference, as Nicklaus Wirth, and Americans - by value, as Nickel's Worth."

It was Dijkstra's article, but he submitted it with the title "A case against the Go To statement". Wirth was the journal editor and he choose to rename it to "Go To statement considered harmful".

Knuth ties into this because he published a response "Structured Programming with go to Statements", examining many situations where goto statements are hard to avoid in the standard structured programming paradigm.

Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#13

Post by Jtsummers »

pdw wrote: post #12
Blammar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

? That was Edsger Dijkstra's article, if I recall correctly. The standard joke is "Europeans refer to him by reference, as Nicklaus Wirth, and Americans - by value, as Nickel's Worth."

It was Dijkstra's article, but he submitted it with the title "A case against the Go To statement". Wirth was the journal editor and he choose to rename it to "Go To statement considered harmful". Knuth ties into this because he published a response "Structured Programming with go to Statements", examining many situations where goto statements are hard to avoid in the standard structured programming paradigm.

GGP had originally referred to the author of the article as Knuth, GP (and I) both replied correcting that. GGP comment has since been edited.

Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#14

Post by Rochus »

dmitriid wrote: post #2

My unpopular opinion. Here's Wirth's words: "The programming language Oberon was the result of a concentrated effort to increase the power of Modula-2 and simultaneously to reduce its complexity." He kept on "reducing complexity" while re-building what is essentially the same, rather primitive, language. ANd he kept throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One of the Oberons had three different loop constructs, and…

Here is a modern version which supports all loops of Oberon and Oberon-2; it also has generic modules and a kind of exceptions, and it is still quite small and simple: https://oberon-lang.github.io/

Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#15

Post by sedatk »

throw-away_42 wrote: post #9
sedatk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also upset at Niklaus Wirth because how he sensationalized Dijkstra's article "A Case Against the Goto Statement" by taking the liberty to change its title to "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", causing a lifelong disproportionate stigma against goto and relevant programming constructs like switch/case, break, continue, etc. Dijkstra had never intended to take such a purist stance against Goto. I also mention th…

From the opening paragraph of Edsger W. Dijkstra's letter to the CACM editor: More recently I discovered why the use of the go to statement has such disastrous effects, and I became convinced that the go to statement should be abolished from all "higher level" programming languages (i.e. everything except, perhaps, plain machine code). "Harmful" seems to me a perfectly appropriate characterization of the words "disas…

Similarly, "A case against" is way more toned down than "harmful." I agree that the opening statement is a strong stance and fits to the new title, but the article mostly focuses on proliferation of goto as a generic flow-control construct rather than exceptional such as using it as a "defer"-like construct in C where there's no alternative. I still think Wirth's edits hid the nuances in the article and helped fostering a strongly opionated dogma against goto by gifting a slogan to the masses.

Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#16

Post by sedatk »

Jtsummers wrote: post #13
pdw wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was Dijkstra's article, but he submitted it with the title "A case against the Go To statement". Wirth was the journal editor and he choose to rename it to "Go To statement considered harmful". Knuth ties into this because he published a response "Structured Programming with go to Statements", examining many situations where goto statements are hard to avoid in the standard structured programming paradigm.

GGP had originally referred to the author of the article as Knuth, GP (and I) both replied correcting that. GGP comment has since been edited.

Yes, I'd meant Dijkstra where I said Knuth despite that Knuth might still be relevant. I got this right in the book, no worries. :)

Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#17

Post by pjmlp »

dmitriid wrote: post #2

My unpopular opinion. Here's Wirth's words: "The programming language Oberon was the result of a concentrated effort to increase the power of Modula-2 and simultaneously to reduce its complexity." He kept on "reducing complexity" while re-building what is essentially the same, rather primitive, language. ANd he kept throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One of the Oberons had three different loop constructs, and…

For me the best Oberon is Active Oberon, although I am quite certain Wirth would see that differently.

Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#18

Post by eterps »

dmitriid wrote: post #2

My unpopular opinion. Here's Wirth's words: "The programming language Oberon was the result of a concentrated effort to increase the power of Modula-2 and simultaneously to reduce its complexity." He kept on "reducing complexity" while re-building what is essentially the same, rather primitive, language. ANd he kept throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One of the Oberons had three different loop constructs, and…

> He kept on "reducing complexity" while re-building what is essentially the same, rather primitive, language. ANd he kept throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

What is interesting about Oberon is that it is a complete (i.e. OS + compiler + HW) usable system that can be understood in its entirety by a single human being within one lifetime.

As far as I know it's also the only system currently in existence that fullfills that promise.

Just the language part of Oberon is not optimal for running on the regular personal computer systems we used or are currently using. But AFAIK that was never its purpose either.

Re: Modula-2 and Oberon (2007) [pdf]

#19

Post by mamcx »

dmitriid wrote: post #2

My unpopular opinion. Here's Wirth's words: "The programming language Oberon was the result of a concentrated effort to increase the power of Modula-2 and simultaneously to reduce its complexity." He kept on "reducing complexity" while re-building what is essentially the same, rather primitive, language. ANd he kept throwing the baby out with the bathwater. One of the Oberons had three different loop constructs, and…

I think the main problem is that Nicolas was like a practical PL researcher and don't think he believe was the guy to build a actual practical PL.

So, more like "take inspiration from me, and see how simplicity can be done".

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