Oberon was a mostly successful experiment in minimalism. Once when I was surprised by a compile error that I didn't think was correct, it didn't take me too lon

Oberon was a mostly successful experiment in minimalism. Once when I was surprised by a compile error that I didn't think was correct, it didn't take me too long to pinpoint the line in the Oberon compiler source (written by Wirth) which was causing it and understand why it was the way it was. You cannot do this with any 'modern' system today.