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Re: [Oberon] Multiple RETURN in a procedure
by peter＠easthope.ca 24 Oct '22

24 Oct '22

Wojciech, From: "Skulski, Wojciech" <skulski(a)pas.rochester.edu> Date: Sun, 23 Oct 2022 04:04:36 +0000 > But I am now facing three thousand lines of my Oberon-2 library. Roughly 50 pages. Someone moderately skilled in the language might spend a few hours revising a page? Pessimistically say four hours/page? For 50 pages, roughly 200 hours or a month. Understandable that you can't spare that time without significant neglect of existing responsibilities. =8~/ The world has millions of young whippersnapper programmers well skilled to make such revisions but lacking direction. With a bit of incentive, the challenge to revise a procedure or module would intrigue some. =8~) Offer a bounty. Thirty dollars per module for example. It's a token. The real incentive is the challenge to collect it. A similar concept was famously successful for Donald Knuth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth#Humor Obviously, rules are necessary. * Verifiable identification of respondent. * Code compiles in the target system without error. * Test commands execute without error. * Revision accepted by judges? * Secure means to pay bounty. PayPal? WorldRemit? Wiki software could help with administration. Regards, ... P.L. mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:PeterEasthope

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Multiple RETURN in a procedure
by Andreas Pirklbauer 24 Oct '22

24 Oct '22

> I was actually looking at source code downloaded from ETH. This > source code is dated 1994 and is accompanied by the note: > > "This directory contains the sources of the Oberon System > version 4 for Ceres-2 Workstations. They replace the earlier > version 1 sources described in the book "Project Oberon” Correct, so N. Wirth started from the original version 1 sources when creating Project Oberon 2013. As a side comment, with respect to the LOOP statement - same problem with its multiple EXITs - when porting the compiler itself, he noted in http://people.inf.ethz.ch/wirth/Oberon/PortingOberon.pdf "There were only 4 loop statements in the compiler – a sign of good programming :-) ... In my experience, a careful search for a new formulation is worth while. In all cases, the new solution turned out to be more satisfactory.” So he clearly wanted to promote the new programming style (and actually enforced it by not allowing the old constructs). Personally, I would have considered adding a “retro" option to the compiler, such that it also accepts old language constructs. But N. Wirth never did that in any of his compilers (if I am not mistaken) since the 1960s. He may have felt that then people will just leave the old code and one ends up with a mix of old and new language constructs. But the market / software industry would not accept that.

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Multiple RETURN in a procedure
by Andreas Pirklbauer 24 Oct '22

24 Oct '22

> Wirth apparently believed the improvement to the language outweighed > the effort of having to rework it for project Oberon 2013 - and he had a. > choice I thank him for having the courage of his convictions. For TextFrames the effort was rather small though. The only place with multiple returns was a single procedure (procedure Min(i,j) incidentally.). There were a few LOOP statements with multiple EXITs though (same problem), e.g. in LocateString, LocateChar, FlipSelecton. But I totally agree with: > I think that the underlying issue is: How do you write substantial > pieces of software based on a changing language? The fact that backward compatibility in language design was never taken seriously in the Pascal - Modula - Oberon line of languages created a lot of legacy code that periodically needed rework and very likely contributed to the more limited adoption of Oberon (as compared to Pascal). In industry, a language that is not backward compatible with itself is bound to face adoption issues.

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Two positions open at SkuTek Instrumentation
by Skulski, Wojciech 18 Oct '22

18 Oct '22

Hello: If you know someone who wants to work with us, and the candidate is either a US citizen and permanent resident, then please forward this e-mail to such a person. Position #1 is exclusively Linux... There may be some Oberon in Position #2. Thank you! We have two openings at SkuTek, both related to Nuclear Physics. The positions are funded by the Department of Energy Office of Science (Nuclear Physics) under Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR). Please forward this info to interested parties. SkuTek Instrumentation is a small high tech company located close to the University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA. We are especially proud of developing and delivering the Digital Data Acquisition for LUX-Zeplin detector (digitizers and logic modules, ~1500 digital channels in total). Full descriptions and how to apply: SkuTek.com --> click on "Job openings" at the upper-right of the page. 1) Software Engineer (Full or Part-Time). SkuTek Instrumentation has an opening for a Software Engineer to help develop 100+ Gbps data acquisition and data management systems for experimental physics, astronomy, astrophysics, and related fields. The data will come from research instruments such as Nuclear Physics detectors, astronomical telescopes, radio telescopes,etc. This will involve reading out from front end electronics, online processing and caching of data, and then transferring it over ESNet, or other scientific networks. Necessary skills include Linux and Windows system administration, networking, and low-level computer science. Experience with NERSC, ESNet, or other experimental facilities will be a plus. There will be opportunities to work on other company projects such as digitizer development or instrument control. The position is appropriate for a computer-savvy physicist, astronomer, electrical engineer, or computer scientist. Work will involve partnership with research community at National Labs and universities. 2) Electrical Engineer: FPGA and Embedded Development SkuTek Instrumentation has an opening for an Research Engineer to help develop instruments for scientific research and education. The instruments consist of analog-to-digital converters (ADC), field programmable gate arrays (FPGA), and embedded processors. The position is appropriate for an engineer with experience with VHDL, Verilog, FPGA architecture, and low level embedded programming. We will also consider a physicist with hands on experience with a variety of detectors and nuclear electronics, both digital and analog. The physicist must be highly motivated to quickly learn essential FPGA techniques. Experience with board design (both schematic and layout), soldering, and troubleshooting will be a plus. Work will involve partnership with research community at National Labs and universities. -- Wojtek Skulski wojtek(a)skutek.com

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Runtime array in Oberon-07
by Deadmarshal 18 Oct '22

18 Oct '22

Hi, I've read that in Oberon-07 we can't have a pointer to an array, and I was wondering how we can set the size of an array at runtime. I want to do something similar to the below code snippet: MODULE Test; (*Oberon-2 compatible*) IMPORT In,Out; VAR PA:POINTER TO ARRAY OF INTEGER; N,Input,I:INTEGER; BEGIN Out.String("Size of array: "); Out.Ln; In.Int(N); NEW(PA,N); Out.String("Enter Items: "); Out.Ln; FOR I := 0 TO N-1 DO In.Int(Input); PA[I] := Input; END; FOR I := 0 TO N-1 DO Out.Int(PA[I],0); Out.Char(' '); END; Out.Ln; END Test.

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Notes for Aliases in Gadgets.
by peter＠easthope.ca 30 Sep '22

30 Sep '22

From https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oberon/ETH_Oberon/Tutorial/GadgetsUse#Aliases "The [Aliases] section in the registry (_OBERON.INI) determines these aliases. The complete list of aliases currently defined can be displayed in the system log with the following command: System.Get Aliases " Does anyone recognize the terminology? Is _OBERON.INI in V4? An Oberon for MS Windows? Neither ETH Oberon 2.3.7 nor ETH Oberon / LinuxA2 Gen. 32-bit, rev.9799 has System.Get. Thanks, ... P.L. mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:PeterEasthope

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Gadgets.Panel vs. BasicGadgets.Panel.
by peter＠easthope.ca 30 Sep '22

30 Sep '22

Hi, >From paulreed at paddedcell.com Fri Jul 22 23:57:20 2022 > The code > ... > will need a good coat of looking at, ... Definitely on my "todo" list. Based upon the Mail source and observed functionality I can write an EBNF syntax for message submission. After that, can think about revisions to lift a constraint or two. Currently working to understand this section in the _Using_Gadgets_ tutorial. https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Oberon/ETH_Oberon/Tutorial/GadgetsUse#The_vis… Apart from the occurance in this tutorial, where does the help icon appear in Gadgets? The second to last paragraph. > Alternatively, you could insert an almost complete collection of > visual gadgets at once with a single click on BasicGadgets.Panel. ETH Oberon / LinuxA2 Gen. 32-bit, rev.9799 has Gadgets.Panel; no BasicGadgets.Panel. A renaming from an earlier release? An error in the tutorial? > ... all these gadgets are fitted with a 'custom' attribute > "Tutorial" otherwise not documented. A gadget can have multiple attributes; correct? How is an attribute, other than the first, selected in Columbus? Can anyone succeed to have Columbus display the Tutorial attribute for a Gadget? Thanks, ... P.L. mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:PeterEasthope

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Re: [Oberon] A Gemini post that is quite damning (sadly)
by peter＠easthope.ca 15 Sep '22

15 Sep '22

Hello Liam, From: Liam Proven <lproven(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2022 12:17:32 +0200 > gemini://54.203.8.106/why.not.oberon.gmi I read the Wikipedia article about gemini. Something less complex than HTTP and HTML seems reasonable. Firefox 91.13.0esr in Debian Linux here is baffled by the gemini URL. =8~/ An extra component is needed? Wikipedia mentions a client named starfish. The starfish in Debian appears to be unrelated. Can you suggest something for Debian Linux? Thx, ... P. mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:PeterEasthope

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A Gemini post that is quite damning (sadly)
by Liam Proven 15 Sep '22

15 Sep '22

« Why Not Oberon? A recent discussion brought up the ghost of Oberon... gemini://54.203.8.106/why.not.oberon.gmi In 2016 I put together an Oberon hardware system based around an FPGA. It seemed like it would be a dream computer. https://web.archive.org/web/20180102133953/http://oberonstation.x10.mx:80/ » https://portal.mozz.us/gemini/gemini.ctrl-c.club/~stack/gemlog/2022-08-29.o… -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lproven(a)cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven(a)gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053

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Re (2): Licensing of images in the wikibook.
by peter＠easthope.ca 24 Aug '22

24 Aug '22

Florian & all, Thanks for the discussion. For me, this copyright business has subtle concepts and I stray into faulty thinking too easily. From: Florian Negele <negelef(a)openbrace.org> Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2022 19:39:44 +0200 > Regarding your configuration strings example, I am wondering why the > ETH Oberon license is relevant at all here. IMHO since you made the > screenshot, you are the sole copyright holder. The text is from source developed at ETH. So ETH copyright is on the text. Being only 23 lines, maybe acknowledgement without quoting the license is enough in most contexts. But Wikimedia requires stating a license for each image. Seems unfair to state only the CCbySA license and not the ETH license. Therefore I put both. > Otherwise you would have to include the license of Qemu just as > well. Only the tiny QEMU icon in the upper left corner and the "QEMU" title are specific to QEMU. Use of the name QEMU probably isn't a copyright violation here. I might have to acknowledge display of the icon. Can investigate that. Thx, ... P.L. mobile: +1 778 951 5147 VoIP: +1 604 670 0140 https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/User:PeterEasthope

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