
Oberon – The Overlooked Jewel - MaysonL
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/Site/pubs-pdf/BC03.pdf
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kls
_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.

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_delirium
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.amazon.com/gp/product/0201544288/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=abxxm-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0201544288)

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olaf
<http://www.oberon.ch/blackbox.html>

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zerothehero
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.

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jamesladd
Great article. I have always been impressed by Oberon.

Anyone know how to get in contact with Michael Franz ?

~~~
MaysonL
See <http://www.ics.uci.edu/~franz/>

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leon_
not one line of code in the pdf ...

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disc
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.

