Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!decwrl!labrea!glacier!jbn
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: Wirth's paper "From Modula to Oberon"
Message-ID: <17451@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 18 May 88 15:00:20 GMT
References: <INFO-M2%88051808492544@DB0TUI11>
Reply-To: jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 14


      Wirth's papers on why Wirth's languages are so great should be viewed
with suspicion.  Read his "Experience with the Programming Language Modula",
(Software Practice and Experience, circa 1978) which refers to Modula I.  
He sounds like a reviewer, but doesn't find any of the problems.  But
as soon as Modula II came out, he started talking of Modula I as an
"experiment".  That's not what he said when he was pushing Modula I.
As one of a group who wrote an entire operating system in Modula I, 
I'm very aware of the limitations of that language.

      In each of Wirth's languages there is some tragic flaw, something
that drives users straight up the walls.  What will it be in Oberon?

					John Nagle