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> Go is a direct descendent of Wirth's languages namely Modula and Oberon This assumption comes up again and again, but the evidence is rather poor. There are
by Rochus 3y ago
> Go is a direct descendent of Wirth's languages namely Modula and Oberon
This assumption comes up again and again, but the evidence is rather poor. There are very few and only marginal similarities. The most obvious is the receiver syntax of the bound procedures. But this can be found in Mössenböck's Oberon-2, not in Wirth's Oberon. Although Wirth was a co-author, he ignored any innovations in Oberon-2 in his subsequent work. Go has a completely different focus and is essentially a further development of Newsqueak; it's definitely not a "direct descentant" of Modula or Oberon.
- vidarh 3y agoPart of the reason it persistently comes up is that Robert Griesemer got his PhD under Mössenböck and Wirth, and people not paying very close attention would probably also see the Oberon-2 connection as a confirmation via an indirect step rather than as an argument against the claim.
- Rochus 3y agoYes, Mössenböck was his PhD supervisor (Wirth was only co-examiner). Personally I consider Oberon-2 a better language, but there are hardly any applications of bound procedures; particularly not in the Oberon systems developed at ETH, and surprisingly few in Linz Oberon either. And Active Oberon followed the more conventional Object Pascal approach.