[Oberon] A new dialect? Oberon+ (OBX)

[Chris Burrows]

On Mon, Jul 26, 2021 at 11:14 PM Skulski, Wojciech
<skulski at pas.rochester.edu> wrote:
>
> "-" is a traditional separator used in C and Component Pascal, for example. Why is it not allowed in Oberon? Is there a technical reason, or just a matter of faith?
>

(I assume you meant to type "_" not "-".)

I would not consider C to be an example of good programming language
design.to follow. The question then becomes not "Why is it not allowed
in Oberon?" but "Why is it allowed in Component Pascal?"

The reason stated by the designers of Component Pascal at the time
this change to the language was introduced i.e. to allow underscores
in identifiers, is as follows:

"To simplify interfacing of existing C libraries, underscores in
identifiers are allowed."

Ref: What's New in Component Pascal? by Cuno Pfister, Oberon
microsystems, Inc. March 2001

Regards,
Chris Burrows
CFB Software
https://www.astrobe.com