🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi!

On Fr 15.03.1996 around 10:02:28 muysers@cginn.cgs.fr (Dirk Muysers) wrote
in message "A question of languages":

> Where I disagree is when you say that reflexiveness and GC are Oberon System
> assumptions.

   I  said that "the language is not free of Oberon System assumptions" and
did  not  indicate  that  the  GC  is  such  an  assumption.  Check out the
definition  of NEW() in Oberon-2 for what I mean; it takes away _necessary_
control  from  the programmer and puts it inside the "all-knowing" run-time
system.   This works inside Oberon where all modules remain loaded, but not
in a "stand-alone" environment.

   Regarding  GC:   The  point  here  is  that  Oberon-2  is advocated as a
"general  purpose  language".   But think about real-time systems where one
usually  can't  guarantee  response times when working with a GC (okay, one
probably will not even use NEW() in such a project either).

> I rather would say it is a language feature, and a very useful
> one for that (sorry I am a former LISPer), but maybe printf() is also a Unix
> assumption.

   I can't agree more.  GC is important!  It's just not appropriate for all
applications.   Now  one  could  either  define  Oberon-2  as  "not general
purpose" or remove the GC "requirement" from the language definition.

   And yes, printf() is a "Unix assumption" and I don't like it either.

> Let us hope that some of us will find the time and energy (and the competence
> of course) to release a good stand-alone compiler.

   That's what I hope, too.
                  _
By(T)e...   /| _ //3000 /\ People who use Pascal for serious programming |\
   Peter... \| \X/\miga \/ fall into a fatal trap.  (Brian W. Kernighan) |/