[Oberon] OLPC - One Laptop Per Child

[Douglas G. Danforth]

http://slashdot.org/ had a recent article about the MIT project
"One Laptop Per Child"
(see http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_Human_Interface_Guidelines)
In that documentation the following caught my attention since this
aspect is similar to Dr. Wirth's design for Oberon.  Is anyone at
ETHZ interacting with the MIT group on OLPC?


"Simplicity

We designed the entire laptop interface with a goal of simplicity. It 
can be tempting—and also quite easy—to add an overabundance of features 
to software: the abundance of MIPS and memory exacerbate the 
software-bloat phenomenon. The laptop hardware "limitations" lead toward 
a more concise direction and aid in designing for simplicity.

Keep in mind that simple doesn't necessarily mean limited. OLPC hopes to 
demonstrate to the world that simple—even minimal—controls can have 
great expressive power. Avoid bloated interfaces that do too much, and 
limit the controls to those immediately relevant to the task at hand. 
Rather than creating a "Swiss Army knife" of an activity, think of the 
laptop itself as the knife, and instead develop a particular tool for 
that knife that does one thing, and does it very well. When all the 
activities on the laptop embrace this idea, the true power of the laptop 
will emerge."
 

-Doug Danforth