<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">> hmm, I am not sure. I guess a growth story would have</span><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">> suffered </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">even more </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">from the forking than Oberon System</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">> suffered already (V4/S3/ETHOS/AOS/A2).</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">Only if no proper software planning </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">and </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">release management</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">process is in place (sadly, Oberon never </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">had </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">any to begin</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">with, and </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">yet it </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">is indispensable </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">in </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">professional software</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">development). </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">There is more to </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">software than </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">just software.</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">But I doubt that a professional release management would have</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">done the trick for Oberon. But </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">developing a “real” </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">product</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">with a clear vision and product roadmap </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">would at least </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">have</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">been a good start - similar </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">to what the </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">Borland line </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">of</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">products did for Modula-2 </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">about a decade </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">earlier, or the</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">Pascal compilers </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">available </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">on Apple </span><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">another decade before</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">that (80s), </span></font><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">or the </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">P-code compilers </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">available (mostly to</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">academia) a few years prior (70s).</span></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class=""><br class=""></span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">But in the end it is never the tool (here: the language and</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">the </span></font><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">developer tools that come with it) </span></font><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">that drives adoption,</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">but always </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">the underlying </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">platform it is running on.</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">Unix </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">is </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">the reason for the success </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">of C (as it is written in</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">it). </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">When </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">Apple switched from Pascal </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">to C in the early 80s,</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">it </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">was (more </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">or less) the end of Pascal </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">on the then-current</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">version of the Mac (the platform). If </span><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">Borland </span></font><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">had </span></font><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">stuck with</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">Turbo Modula-2 </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">on CP/M (the </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">platform), Modula-2 </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">might have had</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">a </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">somewhat better future </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">(although not much, </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">since CP/M itself</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">had no great future, but that’s another </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">story..).</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">Oberon never had any such sponsor to begin with.</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">For Oberon to have succeeded, it would have needed to be</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">embraced by *at least* one large platform provider. Microsoft</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">in the late 1990s would have been such a case, but ETH</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">completely missed out on that - even though they were</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">quite involved with Oberon on .Net around that time. In</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">the end, Microsoft </span></font><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">ended up releasing C#. That closed</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">that window of opportunity.</span></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class=""><br class=""></span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">Today, I don’t think there is much chance that </span></font><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">Oberon will</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">ever come back </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">to life again, as all major players </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">(Microsoft,</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">Google, Apple, </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">Linux/Unix..) now already have their own</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">“modern” </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">languages </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">(C#, Go, </span><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">Swift, Java,..). Despite the</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family: monospace; white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">apparent weaknesses </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">of some (all?) of these languages, they</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">won’t go away anytime </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">soon. The investment is too high,</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">the code base too large. The bandwagon has left.</span></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class=""><br class=""></span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">Perhaps someone has the idea to build a LLVM frontend for</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">LLVM one day. But even with that it would only stand a chance</span></font></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class="">if </span></font><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">(a) it is promoted to a first-class language by at least</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">one platform provider (more is better), and if (b) </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">it is fully</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">integrated with the “rest” - and all of that would </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">require</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">building a professional software development </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">organization.</span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family: monospace;" class="">That closes the circle. It won’t happen.</span></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><font face="monospace" class=""><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;" class=""><br class=""></span></font></div></body></html>