3 ms·

> if you have some interesting links to share I'll skim them with pleasure. I do not advise skimming. I've been a full-time tech journalist for 2 & a half yea

> if you have some interesting links to share I'll skim them with pleasure. I do not advise skimming. I've been a full-time tech journalist for 2 & a half years now (I was in the 1990s as well but the 21st century is very different) and I find the majority of readers who angrily disagree with my articles did not in fact understand the article because they tried to skim it and they didn't get the gist. (In a previous job I was a TESOL/TEFL English teacher. "Skimming for gist" is a skill we test for, and many people don't have it and don't know they don't have it. I an not accusing you here -- but you did mention your own English in negative terms. For example, I was on a talk at FOSDEM in February -- https://fosdem.sojourner.rocks/2024/event/3113 https://fosdem.sojourner.rocks/2024/event/3113 -- and it seemed to me that most of the audience angrily arguing about what the GPL meant and implied had not really genuinely read and understood all 6 pages of the GPL.) Executive summary of Oberon: https://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/04/22/oberon/ https://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/04/22/oberon/ 13 page academic assessment, but very readable and accessible: "Oberon – The Overlooked Jewel" https://dcreager.net/remarkable/Franz2000.pdf https://dcreager.net/remarkable/Franz2000.pdf

kkfx 2y ago
> I do not advise skimming That's very right, but modern life is complicated so accurately study something demand much time, quickly see the concepts might helps and well, the concept of textual-UI is definitively not alien to me, since my desktop is EXWM, with almost all my digital life in org-mode, org-roam-managed notes, it's still very different than Oberon (or Plan 9) desktop but the textual concept and org-mode links that can execute sexps on click (a feature I use much, for instance to link specific mail/threads in notes and create interactive presentations) it's similar. The 2D "spaced" desktop concept It's something I see in the far past, SUN Looking Glass LG3D concept desktop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass and yes while the above help they still can't tell me what's inside the package, meaning what's behind the UI concept and the language grammar. I still miss the architecture. However I suppose for what I've seen so far that essentially it's not really usable in real life so it's a nice to know project but stop here, like Lisp M Genera or Plan 9. Emacs at least can be used for real today. It's sad the IT industry have pushed what I call the glorification of ignorance, but more than preserving knowledge for a more civilized world I think we can't do. So far in the last decades most of the old valid ideas get anyway accepted, for instance widget based UIs have essentially failed and are more and more substituted by WebUIs witch are read-only DocUIs or NotebookUIs witch are limited 2D CLIs, something close to a DocUI. They are mostly text-based as well. So well, maybe in 10+ years we will finally have something like an Oberon or LispM desktop, surely returned with many anti-users aspects but still offering something of the past glory, and there memories will help to keep correcting the aim and reducing the loss. Anyway until people realize the substantial importance and role of IT there is little hope for a more civilized era...
- lproven 2y ago
  I really do feel your pain. ;-) No, it's not viable as a general-purpose OS these days. At one time it was and was deployed to non-technical staff inside ETH. The last development in the line, not from Wirth himself, has a zooming GUI, resizable overlapping windows, SMP, a TCP/IP stack, an email client and a very basic HTTP only web browser. It is closer than you might expect. I believe the core OS is on the order of 8000 LOC. You may enjoy my FOSDEM talks if you're interested in this kind of thing. I did one involving rebooting the local OS stack based on Oberon and Smalltalk, or maybe Newspeak: https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/new_type_of_computer/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/new_type_of_c... I turned it into an article recently: https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/starting_over_rebooting_the_os/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/starting_over_rebooti... And this year a more Linux centric one based around 9front: https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3095-one-way-forward-finding-a-path-to-what-comes-after-unix/ https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3095-one-... That became an article series: https://www.theregister.com/Tag/One%20Way%20Forward/ https://www.theregister.com/Tag/One%20Way%20Forward/

kkfx 2y ago

> I do not advise skimming That's very right, but modern life is complicated so accurately study something demand much time, quickly see the concepts might helps and well, the concept of textual-UI is definitively not alien to me, since my desktop is EXWM, with almost all my digital life in org-mode, org-roam-managed notes, it's still very different than Oberon (or Plan 9) desktop but the textual concept and org-mode links that can execute sexps on click (a feature I use much, for instance to link specific mail/threads in notes and create interactive presentations) it's similar. The 2D "spaced" desktop concept It's something I see in the far past, SUN Looking Glass LG3D concept desktop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass and yes while the above help they still can't tell me what's inside the package, meaning what's behind the UI concept and the language grammar. I still miss the architecture. However I suppose for what I've seen so far that essentially it's not really usable in real life so it's a nice to know project but stop here, like Lisp M Genera or Plan 9. Emacs at least can be used for real today. It's sad the IT industry have pushed what I call the glorification of ignorance, but more than preserving knowledge for a more civilized world I think we can't do. So far in the last decades most of the old valid ideas get anyway accepted, for instance widget based UIs have essentially failed and are more and more substituted by WebUIs witch are read-only DocUIs or NotebookUIs witch are limited 2D CLIs, something close to a DocUI. They are mostly text-based as well. So well, maybe in 10+ years we will finally have something like an Oberon or LispM desktop, surely returned with many anti-users aspects but still offering something of the past glory, and there memories will help to keep correcting the aim and reducing the loss. Anyway until people realize the substantial importance and role of IT there is little hope for a more civilized era...

lproven 2y ago
I really do feel your pain. ;-) No, it's not viable as a general-purpose OS these days. At one time it was and was deployed to non-technical staff inside ETH. The last development in the line, not from Wirth himself, has a zooming GUI, resizable overlapping windows, SMP, a TCP/IP stack, an email client and a very basic HTTP only web browser. It is closer than you might expect. I believe the core OS is on the order of 8000 LOC. You may enjoy my FOSDEM talks if you're interested in this kind of thing. I did one involving rebooting the local OS stack based on Oberon and Smalltalk, or maybe Newspeak: https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/new_type_of_computer/ https://archive.fosdem.org/2021/schedule/event/new_type_of_c... I turned it into an article recently: https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/starting_over_rebooting_the_os/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/26/starting_over_rebooti... And this year a more Linux centric one based around 9front: https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3095-one-way-forward-finding-a-path-to-what-comes-after-unix/ https://fosdem.org/2024/schedule/event/fosdem-2024-3095-one-... That became an article series: https://www.theregister.com/Tag/One%20Way%20Forward/ https://www.theregister.com/Tag/One%20Way%20Forward/