It's not by design, not really. Early Pascal/Modula/Oberons were extremely anal about loops (of any kind) never having any early exits, ever. Then they ran in

It's not by design, not really. Early Pascal/Modula/Oberons were extremely anal about loops (of any kind) never having any early exits, ever. Then they ran into the real world. So each consecutive version of Oberon either added early returns or removed early returns. Sometimes like clockwork. And also added/removed other types of loops in pursuit of some unspecified ideal of simplicity. You can see part of that history in the overview of differences: https://oberon-lang.github.io/2021/07/16/comparing-oberon+-with-oberon-2-and-07.html https://oberon-lang.github.io/2021/07/16/comparing-oberon+-w... So it's a self-imposed constraint that makes very little sense.