I'm a software developer with a large consulting firm. And since
productivity, efficiency, reliability, and maintainability in relation
to software development tools are primary concerns of mine, I was
immediately interested in the Oberon language and related tools.
I first heard of Oberon as a language and a system from an article in
a 1991 issue of Byte Magazine. But it was several years after that before
I actually was able to find a PC version of the Oberon system. I played
around with that a bit... and bought the book "Programming in Oberon" by
Reiser and Wirth. I thought the language was great. The system was ok...
but it wasn't something I could use in my daily work.
Oberon/F was the first commercial environment using the Oberon language
that I became aware of. I've been following Oberon/F since the 1.1beta and
from the start was convinced that it had immense potential. I have tried
Visual Basic and found it to be a great environment - with a terrible
language. I've not tried Delphi as of yet, but I am concerned about
"advances" like variant records being added to the product.
A major advantage Oberon/F has over these other "forms based" development
environments is that, as I see it, Oberon/F is much more than a "forms"
tool. It should scale very well to large projects. (I would be interested
to hear from anyone who has used Oberon/F for such large projects).
Unfortunately, the project I am currently working on uses a software
package that will most likely preclude any chance at talking the project
leaders into using Oberon/F. However, I will continue to look for
opportunities to use it in future projects.
I haven't had as much experience with Oberon/F as I'd like. I am continuing
to learn the framework (as time permits - which means it goes slowly).
Another concern of mine is in teaching the Oberon language and the Oberon/F
framework. If I were to use Oberon/F on a professional project, it would
be necessary to teach other project members the language and framework.
Oberon/F's documentation continues to improve by leaps and bounds with
each release and this has been helpful in learning the framework. A more
complete tutorial would be a requirement if I had to educate other project
members about Oberon/F (I remember reading somewhere about an Oberon/F
book - does anyone know if this is still in the works?)
At this point, I am concentrating on writing an introductory tutorial to
the Oberon(-2) language. Though the Wirth/Reiser book is good in many
respects, I think it isn't satisfactory for "beginners" (anyone not
intimately familiar with Pascal/Modula-2). I would use my tutorial if I
had to teach my co-workers Oberon(-2) (and who knows, maybe I could even
try get it published in book form - something along the lines of "Oberon
for Dummies" :) ).
I would like to thank Guy for setting up and maintaining this mailing list.
Keep up the good work, Guy! :)
Here's a question: In the Oberon/F 1.2beta, when I try to cut-and-paste
a text selection from an Oberon/F document to an MS-Word document, an
Oberon/F view is pasted into the Word document - rather than just the
plain text. Is there a way to copy just the text and not create an embedded
view?
Thanks,
Eric