Thread View: comp.lang.oberon
2 messages
2 total messages
Started by Guy Laden
Fri, 12 Apr 1996 21:46
Re: System V3 <> V4 problems...
Author: Guy Laden
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 21:46
Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 21:46
87 lines
4823 bytes
4823 bytes
Wojtek wrote:
>They do not think of themselves as being providers "for the market",
>and therefore they always refused to make any such commitments.
>That is funny, because on the other hand they invested lots of effort
>into making terrific systems that we know. They just do not want to
>take on any sort of expressed obligation. I think this is understandable.
I can understand why people would want better support for Oberon users
from the ETH. However I simply dont understand why people aren't
enthusiastic when they HAVE IT in the form of Oberon-Microsystems (OMI)
and Oberon/F.
This company is "for the market", and has made just the commitments we
need.
As I see things, WE are part of the Oberon/F market.
If we want more platforms supported, or a V4 look and feel - put customer
pressure on OMI. I'm pretty sure the OMI team would love to be able to
financially justify development of a V4 look and feel and the porting of the
framework to 15 platforms.
Think about it: A Native-PC version of Oberon/F is just round the corner-
all we have to do is pay for it. We are on equal footing with the
developers - if we are willing to pay them. Its as simple as that.
Collectively, maybe we can cause it to happen. FWIW: I've had over 25000
overseas hits to my Oberon pages in the last 6 months.
>The whole idea of my many postings can be boiled down to just two points:
>
>1. Please notice you have a potentially influential international audience
> for your ideas. "We" can be looked upon not as an annoying crowd,
> but rather as a carrier through which your ideas can infiltrate the places
> which you cannot reach yourself.
I think we are being respectfuly regarded as an audience enthusiastic for
the ETH research.
But we want more. We do not want to be told about ideas and given
works-in-progress.
We want software we can use (with our weird weird ATI video cards too!).
We want stable, portable and elegant products with well proven designs,
not experimental prototypes.
We want a commitment to support. We want our wants/needs pandered to.
In short, I believe we want to be _consumers_, not an _audience_.
The article that appeared in this forum by N. Wirth said it all.
(its in the comp.lang.oberon archives at:
http://www.math.tau.ac.il/~laden/clo/9507/0339.html)
It is now time for "Effective Technology Transfer".
Note "Technolog Transfer" - ie: bring the _technology_ out of the research
and not taking the _researchers_ out of the research labs with it.
>2. This can happen only through practical applications of your software.
> Please make developing such applications easier, by not creating
> unnecessary stumbling blocks in the first place.
Do you realy want to unify System-3 and V4? What is the point?
V4 is stable, available on many platforms and includes full
source code. Such a 'unification' will bring about the situation
where either: a V5 is created as a research vehicle and in independant from
the new combined version, or the combined V3-4 is constantly changed.
I think the separation is logical.
btw: Those familiar with at&t's plan9 OS already went through this spiel:
once the researchers finished their research on the OS, they released
it with no support and (thankfully) continued research into
a new OS ("brazil") instead of spending their time making sure
plan9-users are happy. Discussions similar to this one could be seen
from time to time in plan-9 public forums.
Personally, I'm very happy with the situation:
I'm busy studying Oberon/F and the upcoming new version seems
more promising than ever.
Meanwhile ETH research reaches me in books and publications:
J.Gutknecht has recently published a new technical report to chew on
and I'm waiting for the English version of N.Wirth's new book while
trying to make time to read his last one.
And finally I'm a grateful user of Oberon. I have no desires to "update",
"revise" or even "improve" the language. (No, I dont think its perfect, I
think I'm just far less "trigger-happy" when it comes to langauges)
Perhaps its just lucky timing:
Because I'm a relative latecomer to Oberon, Oberon/F was available to me from
the start. So I have no V4 legacy.
Anyway thats my view of things, as far as the ETH and the future Oberon
platform go. However I feel theres still *alot* to be done in the
user and non-ETH/Linz/Ulm developer community.
Regards,
Guy.
Re: System V3 <> V4 problems...
Author: skulski
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 17:01
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 17:01
79 lines
4636 bytes
4636 bytes
In article <4kmivn$b6b@post.tau.ac.il>,
laden@orion.math.tau.ac.il (Guy Laden) writes:
>
> I can understand why people would want better support for Oberon users
> from the ETH. However I simply dont understand why people aren't
> enthusiastic when they HAVE IT in the form of Oberon-Microsystems (OMI)
> and Oberon/F.
> This company is "for the market", and has made just the commitments we
> need. [snip]
Guy: I agree with your enthusiasm about Oberon uSystems (maybe we should
reserve OMI for M.Franz Oberon Module Interchange?) I want to direct
your attention to another _commercial_ enterprise, namely Templ Software.
Templ Software (TS) are commercially supporting both V4 and System-3
on a number of platforms. Initially I thought V4/System-3 support
built into TS's Ofront was sort of a demo, but according to info I obtained
from TS it is not a demo at all, it is a full-blown Oberon System in both
incarnations. Just think of this! Not only there is V4+System3 (= System5?),
not only it is available for a number of platforms, not only it supports
Oberon-2 language (with which the original S3 has problems somehow),
but it is COMMERCIAL and thus truly end user-oriented. From my dealing
with TS I know they are very friendly and responsive, even though
I am not a paying customer at the moment. All in all, TS are pretty
amazing company. I strongly suggest that you make a special section
"Commercial Systems/Compilers" on your home page, in which full info about
both OuS and TS will be easy to find. Quite naturally, this is not to mean
other companies should be in the second row. I only suggest that these
two particular vendors deserve our attention because of the special variety
of products they provide.
I also think that TS approach of picking up a well-developed "product
line" from ETH is a very interesting one. Do not you think that every
new product line needs quite a long warm-up time before it can become
truly successful? One can even argue that new products and ideas come to
fruition only when they are already obsolete. From this point of view
a commercial line of Oberon Systems comes just in time, whereas Oberon/F
being a completely new product not long ago may be only at the beginning
of its useful life cycle. All in all, I am myself very happy about
Oberon Systems supported commercially by TS, ModulaWare, and hopefully
by other vendors.
> I think we are being respectfuly regarded as an audience enthusiastic for
> the ETH research.
> But we want more. We do not want to be told about ideas and given
> works-in-progress.
> We want software we can use (with our weird weird ATI video cards too!).
> We want stable, portable and elegant products with well proven designs,
> not experimental prototypes.
> We want a commitment to support. We want our wants/needs pandered to.
> In short, I believe we want to be _consumers_, not an _audience_.
You said it all. Once again: I have not dealt with OuS because I committed
myself to Oberon System at this moment, but I did have some contacts
with Templ Software and I was truly amazed by their help and friendliness.
They were supportive in the best sense of the word.
> Do you realy want to unify System-3 and V4? What is the point?
Not necessarily. But I have some kind suggestion for the System-3 team.
Somehow, they created an impression of "haphazardness", as pointed out
by Doug. I can't see why it should be so. I can't see why they do not
plan Oberon-2 support (maybe they do?). Small points. Easy to change.
> V4 is stable, available on many platforms and includes full
> source code.
I hope it _will_ include full source code for all platforms.
Right now I am not (officially) aware of any Unix V4 released in source.
Maybe Univ. Linz Linux port will change this.
> Meanwhile ETH research reaches me in books and publications:
> J.Gutknecht has recently published a new technical report to chew on
> and I'm waiting for the English version of N.Wirth's new book while
> trying to make time to read his last one.
Yes.... what about a book on System-3? Is it in the pipeline?
Wojtek
Thread Navigation
This is a paginated view of messages in the thread with full content displayed inline.
Messages are displayed in chronological order, with the original post highlighted in green.
Use pagination controls to navigate through all messages in large threads.
Back to All Threads