[Oberon] What is the status of Lola-2 and its use in the FPGAversion of Project Oberon?

[Paul Reed]

Hi Wojciech,

> In modern FPGA programming the code is
> more often expressed behaviorally [than] RTL style...

Yeah, you said this before, without backing it up and without giving a 
useful worked example.  I've also had other similar dogmatic opinions 
from FPGA people without much edification.  And their code [if any] is, 
well, let's just say... amazing. :)


> tell the compiler "here is what I intend, go and figure it out". Most
> FPGA coding is done this way these days.

LOL.  Good luck with that...  Vendor sales pitch, surely?  They have a 
vested interest in convincing you it's all too hard for meagre humans.  
But seriously, again, a working example would be nice showing pros and 
cons.


>> If a feature requires special features not
>> supported by Lola, I wrap it in Verilog.  The main cause of this
>> currently is library identifiers (e.g. "_" characters), but in fact 
>> it's
>> really wrapping the nonportable pieces.

> Is there any special reason to not change Lola such that the main
> cause is just eliminated?

You mean the main cause of the subordinate cause?  No.  I sometimes add 
"_" to Prof. Wirth's scanners, but more often not, these days.  It can 
be useful to have nicer-looking identifiers come from the Lola, and 
enforce that.  C used this trick once upon a time.  But knock yourself 
out, it's not a hard thing to add.

Cheers,
Paul