Oberon – The Overlooked Jewel | Hacker News Reader

Oberon – The Overlooked Jewel

ics.uci.edu

50 pointsMaysonL8 comments

The most important influence throughout was of course Wirth’s insistence on simplicity of design, which finally seems to be finding a resonance in the world of computing. I believe that Wirth’s ultimate impact will be felt even stronger ten years from now than it is today, and that the legacy of his accomplished career devoted to The Art of Simplicity will be enduring.

Simplicity is so underrated in this industry. I once went on an interview, where the developers at the company, insisted that I had to know every obscure detail of a languadge to be a master. To which I replied that clever code does not make it elegant code and by opting for fringe programming practices, over simpler more elegant solutions, that they where, in fact, unnecessarily complication their development process. The lesson seemed to go over their head and needless to say they where not interested in my advice. It's funny, in my experience, I have seen the developers that consistently deliver, usually parallel the developers that provide the simplest, most elegant solutions. Gold plating is such a problem in our industry, it is nice to see someone adhere to the doctrine of simplicity. It is an art unto itself.

Fwiw, ETH Zurich (where Oberon was developed) ships emulated versions of the Project Oberon operating system that can run under various modern platforms: http://www.oberon.ethz.ch/

Wirth and his collaborator Jürg Gutknecht also wrote a book about the project: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0201544288/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...

http://www.oberon.ch/blackbox.html

It's great to see a researcher with such passion and love for his subject. I never knew about Oberon -- my only exposure to this side of the universe was programming Pascal in high school. This was a great read.

Great article. I have always been impressed by Oberon.

Anyone know how to get in contact with Michael Franz ?

See http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/

not one line of code in the pdf ...

Completely off-topic, but if you ever get the chance to indulge in Bell's Oberon, please do. Just the smell of this beer takes me back to spring/summertime in Ann Arbor.

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