[Oberon] NW programming style

[Richard Hable]

Am 2016-07-11 um 17:13 schrieb Skulski, Wojciech:

> I was always amused by NW advocating high level programming, using
> named constants rather than hard coding the numbers, etc. And then in
> his published book Project Oberon the reader can enjoy seeing "1",
> "2", and "3" meaning mouse clicks left, middle, and right. Which is
> the exact opposite of the principles NW was teaching.

I don't think the master of simplicity ever advocated using named
constants in cases like this. It is not difficult to count to three when
looking at the mouse keys, and it wouldn't be possible to change the
number assignment anyhow without breaking compatibility to central
Oberon System modules.

> The grad students then cleaned the code in their Unix/Linux/Windows
> ports of Project Oberon. They used ML, MM, MR meaning mouse left,

Students often exaggerate when applying the principles of their master. :)

Richard