Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Is Oberon As Simple As Possible?, Atanas Radenski

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Books and Book Chapters

The design of the programming language Oberon was led by the quote by Albert Einstein: 'make it as simple as possible, but not simpler'. The objective of this paper is to analyze some design solutions and propose alternatives which could both simplify and strengthen the language without making it simpler than possible. The paper introduces one general concept, the module type, which can be used to represent records, modules, and eventually procedures. Type extension is redefined in terms of component nesting and incomplete designators. As a result, type extension supports multiple inheritance.