[Oberon] Conditional compilation using IF const THEN

[Andreas Pirklbauer]

   > Also I believe that Prof. Wirth mentions somewhere a comment by Tony Hoare
   > that C-style conditional compilation of the form #if DEBUG / ... / #endif
   > is like learning to swim in a pool with flotation assistance and then
   > abandoning it the first time you swim in the sea! :)

Never heard that comparison… not surprised though that Tony said that.

   > It's certainly bad practice to be intentionally debugging a different program
   > than the one you intend to ship to customers, although it's often done.

I usually quickly insert write statements to print out the value of
variables if I need to (and remove them when done debugging),
usually using module Out, in order to avoid importing Texts and
Oberon and opening a Texts.Writer at the beginning of my module.

PS: I recall having been asked why I did not insert debug code in a
kernel that we had to write for Modula-2-Extended (MEX) during
a semester project presentation at EPFL, and my response was:
“un noyeau ne se plante pas” (a Kernel never crashes).

That remark knocked my grade off from 10 to 9... so here we go.