[Oberon] Anecdotes: human factor, admission - embarrassment !

[easlab at absamail.co.za]

Since writing this a few days ago I wasn't sure if I'd already
posted it. So I tried to check the mailing-list archive.
n-o can't even read its OWN mailing list -- not good !!

John Drake wrote:-

> I believe there is an ARM/Xscale port already.  See:
> https://www.mail.inf.ethz.ch/archive/oberon/2004/001407.html
> ....
Thanks but n-o can't read 'https', and I must reboot to linux and
 face a song-&-dance dialog about security....
I'll do it later.

> On the flipside the OOC (optimizing Oberon
> Compiler) and the companion product Visual
> Oberon are open source projects from the
> ground up.
> 
I don't want to spend time investigating another failing route,
but do you know if 'Visual Oberon' has some 'syntax directed
input facilities' instead of free/blind creating source text 
which is then submitted to the compiler ?

--------------
You can't do more than the most brief-trivial programming
without pondering the limitations of human mental facilities.

That's what prompted a previous post re. 'syntax editors
and stuff' which removes the need to remember and only
requires recognition.  Of the several responses none IMO got
to the heart of the problem which is that in n-o the ability to
pick sytactically valid big constructs from a menu is an 
irrelevant labour saver compared to the acrobatics needed to 
eg. 'type-change backwards and forwards' to eg. do the 
equivalent of:  

OutPort[Blue] := MaxOf(Inport[Height], Inport[Length]) LOR Speed;
  where 'LOR' is binary-bit-or (as all of us coming-up via hardware
  are trained and expected to think); versus the n-o absurd syntax.

  Plus unconventional inconvenience that n-o won't accept
   functions as args.  Plus the 'natural' priority to work with
   bytes requires punishing mental acrobatics.
   Perhaps it could be hidden behind a macro-menu ?

Briefly: any 'syntax editor' which allows you to effortlessly build
naive code 100 times faster, is as irrelevant as the box that runs 
100 times faster than my previous 386, and saves me 99% of 
10 mS for n-o operations - i.e. save me 10 mS.

As you know, for effective optimisation, you must concentrate
on the resource consuming areas.    It's no good halving the 
trans-atlantic flight time, to be followed by a six hr road delay.
-------------

Re. 'Nth generation' smart tools:
Because I dropped out of industry before the Pspice & other simulators
were common, I'm always wondering how much these tools really
contribute.
 
I'm wondering if:
http://www.mathworks.com/applications/dsp_comm/description/mbd.html

> "Models are easy to share with designers, and reduce their need to build 
> physical prototypes. Instead, designers can simulate and iterate as many 
> times as necessary to refine the model to meet the constraints of the 
> target environment, and to validate the system behavior against the 
> requirements. Once the design is refined and validated, designers can 
> automatically generate code from the model, eliminating the need for hand 
> coding and the errors that manual coding can introduce. 
> 
> Engineers can ensure quality throughout the development process by 
> integrating tests into the models at any stage. This continuous 
> verification and simulation helps identify errors early, when they are 
> easier and less expensive to fix....",

 really works, as I mistakenly expected syntax editors to.  Or is it just
garbage-hype like "talking to your computer for input" ?
 -----------

Re. human incapacity to remember vs. recognise:
  I recently posted a query/request for 'removing no-ascii chars',
and while searching for other utils, I see on my Personal.Tool:
     StripNonASCII.Do <Src> <Dst> ~

How embarassing: I've previously raised this issue and had it 
attended to already !!

Which confirms my plea to reduce memory load and replace
it by recognition  - especially if the victim has many unrelated
projects/languages.    It's a nightmare when you want to do a
small task in a language which you haven't used for a year or more.

Ideally the user should need to remember nothing - just read the box.

n-o's cording goes even beyond replacing recalling with recognition,
by moving the hi-frequency operations to instinctive cording.

== Chris Glur.