The Oberon System

Project Oberon contains a definition of the Oberon Language and describes its relation to Modula-2 and the software tools developed with the system. This definitive, first-hand account of the design, development, and implementation of Oberon completes the Oberon trilogy.

Without a doubt the idea of object-oriented programming has brought some motion into the field of programming methodology and enlarged the set of programming languages. Object-oriented programming is nothing new-it first arose in the sixties. The motivation came from the simulation of discrete event systems. The concept first manifested itself in the language Simula 67. It took nearly two decades for the method to gain impetus, and today object-oriented programming is an important concept and a powerful technique. Meanwhile, we can even speak of an over reaction, for the concept has become a buzzword. But buzzwords always appear where there is the hope of exploiting ill-informed clients because they see the new approach as the solution to all their problems. Thus object-oriented programming is often hailed as a panacea. And so the question is justified: What is really behind it? To let the cat out of the bag: There is more to object-oriented programming than merely putting data as objects in the fore ground, instead of algorithms to which the data are subject. It is more than purely an alternative view of programmed systems. To identify the essence of object-oriented programming, is the subject of this book. This is a textbook that shows in a didactically skillful way which concepts and constructs are new, where they can be employed reasonably, and what advantages they offer. For, not all programs are automatically improved by merely recasting them in an object-oriented style.

A refreshing antidote to heavy theoretical tomes, this book is a concise, practical guide to modern compiler design and construction by an acknowledged master. Readers are taken step-by-step through each stage of compiler design, using the simple yet powerful method of recursive descent to create a compiler for Oberon-0, a subset of the author's Oberon language. A disk provided with the book gives full listings of the Oberon-0 compiler and associated tools. The hands-on, pragmatic approach makes the book equally attractive for project-oriented courses in compiler design and for software engineers wishing to develop their skills in system software.

This book is aimed at students who need to learn the basics of programming or who are studying computing. It is a "hands on" book containing many examples which start by illustrating basic Oberon-2 language features and gradually increase in scope to cover object-oriented programming concepts and constructs. Oberon-2 is a successor to the language Pascal, which was also designed by Prof. N. Wirth [Wir71J. It has quickly become a major language used for teaching purposes. The only thing you need for successfully working through the book is to have access to a computer running Windows 3. 11 or Windows 95. The material in the book is useful to students of schools, colleges, and universities for teaching Oberon-2 and programming at an introductory level. of the book is not focused on software engineering or object The scope oriented technology; other books mentioned in the reference section already cover these topics in much greater depth. However, the examples in the book have been designed with these topics firmly in mind. Currently the term "object-oriented" is very much in fashion, having taken over from structured programming of the 1970s and '80s. In this book we have taken the view that a structured programming approach can be used to teach the fundamentals of programming algorithms. The object-oriented approach is then brought in as a complementary way to think, analyze, design and program.

Programming languages and system architectures are at the frontiers of two different worlds. The conference on which this book is based was an adventure in a land where the two worlds - the formal world of algorithms and the physical world of electronic circuits - interact. The participants explored this land under the guidance of internationally renowned researchers such as Butler W. Lampson, Susan Graham, Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut, and C.A.R. Hoare, all of whom gave invited papers. The volume includes these papers together with sixteen session papers. Subjects of special interest include: programing language design and history, programming environments, programming methods, operating systems, compiler construction, and innovative system architectures.