[Oberon] Use of resources.

[Paul Reed]

> Did Wirth write something about refraining from use
> of a resource merely because it is available?  I'm
> almost certain I read it in something he wrote or in
> something biographical.  Haven't found it with Google.

Project Oberon, section 2.3:
(https://www.inf.ethz.ch/personal/wirth/ProjectOberon/PO.System.pdf, p.19)

"The high priority given in the system's conception to modularity, to
avoiding unnecessary frills, and to concentrate on the indispensable in
the core, has resulted in a system of remarkable compactness. Although
this property may be regarded as of little importance in this era of
falling costs of large memories, we consider it to be highly essential. We
merely should like to draw the reader's attention to the correlation
between a systems' size and its reliability. Also, we do not consider it
as good engineering practice to consume a resource lavishly just because
it happens to be cheap."

A passage which stayed with me, too - and why I always recommend anyone
interested in Project Oberon to spend as much time as possible with the
original texts, which (unusually for most computing texts) reward a good
read.

Cheers,
Paul