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From: Jon.Guthrie@p25.f506.n106.z1.fidonet.org (Jon Guthrie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: Oberon compiler and references
Message-ID: <7706.28396F54@puddle.fidonet.org>
Date: 19 May 91 18:04:47 GMT
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 On a message of 17-May-91, Paul Schwartz (1:105/42.0) Said:

 > Some PD/Shareware software is top
 > notch, better than many commercial packages.  Don't sell it short just
 > because its free and lacks a major marketing department.

Let me emphasize the first word:  SOME of that software is top notch.
Some is marginal.  Some is totally unacceptable.  Like most software,
shareware and "freeware" run the whole gamut from excellent to
execrable.

I mostly agree with the sentiments of the person to whom you were
replying.  You don't want to start beginners out on questionable
software.  This situation which is exacerbated by the fact that there
are very few books out on Oberon - none of which are commonly
available.

If I were teaching the course, I'd wait a couple of years for Oberon
to mature a bit before I started subjecting beginning programmers to
it.

(BTW:  I think that all this Oberon traffic deserves it's own
newsgroup/echo/whatever.  I also wish Randy Bush would put his FidoNet
address in his messages/netmail so that those of us who aren't in the
Usenet elite can actually talk to him.)



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