[Oberon] Oberon compiler futures

[Srinivas Nayak]

Dear Jan,

    Wirth did this to make sure you, the clever programmer, could not be
    tempted to tap into a function declared *in a DEF file*, somewhere
    halfway, relying on an undocumeted side effect of that function.


You mean def file or object file?

With thanks and best regards,

Yours sincerely,
Srinivas Nayak

Home: http://www.mathmeth.com/sn/
Blog: http://srinivas-nayak.blogspot.in/


Jan Verhoeven wrote:
> Quite a lot of people said something like:
>
>> create an Oberon compiler that somehow connects to GCC, but at one of
>> the intermediate code levels:
> If you have this kind of thoughts, you should read PIM once again (or
> for the first time).
>
> In Modula-2 you have the DEFinition module showing which function
> prototypes you have and the associated IMPLEMENTATION module in which
> the actual functions are declared.
> All users have the DEF files. Each DEF file links to an object file.And
> nobody knows what's inside the object file.
>
> Wirth did this to make sure you, the clever programmer, could not be
> tempted to tap into a function declared in a DEF file, somewhere
> halfway, relying on an undocumeted side effect of that function.
>
> Tapping into the internals of gcc would be this same thing. It is normal
> for programmers in lesser languages. But it is a deadly sin for all of
> us who ever read PIM, PIO or any other Work of Wirth.
>