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Has anybody looked at Oberon+?
Sometimes I'm looking for something just a little bigger than Oberon-2, and I like some of the ideas from Oberon+, although I'm indifferent to the (optional) new syntax.
In particular, the version of generics in Oberon+ looks attractive. There is an article on the approaches considered and the approach actually taken here:
I'd like to never again have to write another linked list implementation just because I need to put a different type in a linked list.
Oct 03 · 2 months ago
If you really feel that way about linked lists, consider Common Lisp, a much more sophisticated language, with macros, so you don't have to write boilerplate all the time. At least you will never have to suffer pinky arthritis from typing BEGIN and END all day long
👽 TKurtBond [OP] · Oct 04 at 02:48:
Oh, I already like and use Common Lisp (and Scheme). But sometimes I need a smaller and simpler language that isn’t full of footguns, but is a safer alternative to C. Oberon 2 is small and simple compared to modern languages, but has almost everything I want.
Hello. You should ask Norayr about his opinion, he's made his own Oberon compiler. As for me, I truly think that most languages never really do generics correctly. They're always too overcomplicated and have ugly syntax. Do look at more "meme" languages to see how they do it, rather than how mainstream ones do it. Mainstream languages usually try to appeal to the norm, which is usually not a smart norm. Niklaus Wirth would probably not add generics to any language of his, but I'm just assuming. RIP
👽 TKurtBond [OP] · Oct 08 at 01:32:
I'm familiar with genetics in Modula 3 and Ada and I've read about genetics in Go. I used to know a bit about C++ templates, but it has been a long time since I've written any C++.
👽 TKurtBond [OP] · Oct 08 at 01:35:
Sigh. Genetics should have been generics, of course, I think the Oberon+ approach to generics looks reasonable.
🐙 norayr [mod] · Oct 14 at 20:33:
first of aii hello, i think i figured out what was vipack and fedora issue, see github. (:oo2c also has generics.
🐙 norayr [mod] · Oct 14 at 20:37:
oh, enter pushes comments in mobile mode, sorry.
dsar on #oberon on libera has deep understanding about which way is better to add generics to oberon, and cited i think mossenbock paper on the topic once.
🐙 norayr [mod] · Oct 14 at 20:37:
again, enter, sorry.
🐙 norayr [mod] · Oct 14 at 20:41:
omg, and again.
we discussed how to move further voc development with dave, another voc dev and repo admin, he has lots of experience and is much smarter than me and he was very convincing that generics are very bad idea and we need to not think of it.
i was surprised rob pike agreed to add generics to go. well let's see, i hope there will be no exceptions.
🐙 norayr [mod] · Oct 14 at 20:45:
i personally think oberon is great as is and it should not change. wirth created it as it is for many reasons and knew what he was doing. i think it's okay to have better tooling around the compiler but i do not believe that syntax should be more complex rhan it is now.
i am afraid of oberon popularity and people asking for features. that is the way to turn oberon to something else, which is not oberon.
👽 TKurtBond [OP] · Nov 29 at 20:38:
There are already a bunch of different variants of Oberon, so I don't think it hurts for there to be another variant that adds generics, but I definitely think that original Oberon, Oberon-2, and Wirth's last version of Oberon need to stick around for the long term. I really like that Vishap Oberon, for instance is an Oberon-2 compiler, and I hope it doesn't add non-Oberon-2 features. I do like some of the features in Oberon+, though I'm not wild about the "new syntax": I don't think adding it is going to help Oberon+'s popularity.