Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!necntc!dandelion!ulowell!sbrunnoc@eagle.ulowell.edu
From: sbrunnoc@eagle.ulowell.edu (Sean Brunnock)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.modula2
Subject: Re: Wirth's paper "From Modula to Oberon"
Message-ID: <7195@swan.ulowell.edu>
Date: 23 May 88 00:59:49 GMT
References: <5260@ico.ISC.COM>
Sender: news@swan.ulowell.edu
Lines: 19

From article <5260@ico.ISC.COM>, by rcd@ico.ISC.COM (Dick Dunn):
> John Nagle:
>>       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?
 
> The lack of a counted loop ("for" statement) gets my nomination for tragic
> flaw.

   I find this curious. I read Hillis' thesis recently (The Connection 
Machine) and he states that with a massively parallel computer such as
his, there is no need for a for loop. Operations are done on entire
sets of numbers or other data at a time.

   I have not read Wirth's paper closely (but I shall soon). Do you
think Wirth had massively parallel machines in mind when writing
Oberon? As far as I know there is only one language, MultiLISP, that
is available for the Connection Machine.

   Sean Brunnock