Modula-2: what went wrong?

On 2008-04-17, Jim Granville <no.spam@designtools.maps.co.nz> wrote:
> http://www.turboexplorer.com/delphi
>
> "The free Turbo Delphi Explorer edition is a fixed, all-in-one solution
> which lets beginners and hobbyists learn programming and develop
> applications using the Delphi language."
>
> So the emergence of free, high grade compilers for students, and part
> time, or shareware type developers shows a couple of things :
>
> ** Other free software offerings (Gcc, freepascal etc), helped push the
> companies to do this.
>
> ** The revenue streams from this sector was not big. Large number of
> users, but most happy one generation (or more) back from the leading edge.

Personally I think the latter, not the former. Programming ware became more
specialistic and moved to more expensive specialised retailers, and the
small packages probably also were a fairly high burden on support.

Borland has had free versions of Delphi sinds after D4 std, long before FPC
became compatible enough to compile bulk delphi code.

The gcc side is a bit better, but not much. gcc on windows has been painful
(to say the least) for years, and then a while it worked, but mostly only
with cygwin, not mingw.

Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "graham.kerr.stark@googlemail.com" <graham.stark@virtual-worlds.biz> wrote
> in message
> news:7c9a0c9f-3394-43de-8ece-3f8f1d45f650@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>> So, I have two questions:

>> 1) Why have these languages failed? Ada and Delphi are alive to an
>> extent, but none dominate, and - lets' face it Modula-2 is barely used
>> at all. At first sight, they offer so many advantages, especially in
>> clarity and type safety.

> Failed? Failed to have mass acceptance do you mean? Does that really
> constitute a failure? I would rather be in the company of a few lions than
> millions of sheep ;-)

Yes, that really DOES constitute a failure. Without an active and
reasonably large community, you don't get compilers for new platforms
or even fixes for the defects in the extant compilers. You also don't
get libraries for new functionality. The reason that you had to switch
from Modula-2 back in 1995 can only be called the failure of Modula-2.

To think otherwise is just whistling past the graveyard.

>> 2) Is it fixable? Can anyone imagine a language in this tradition that
>> might be a hit? What would it look like?

> I was happy with the improvements of Oberon-2 over Modula-2 from a language
> perspective but it wasn't until the .NET Framework 2.0 and Component Pascal
> for .NET came along a couple of years ago that I was able to start replacing
> Delphi as my tool of choice for implementing Windows apps with the clarity
> and security of Oberon-style code.

I don't know why it wouldn't be fixable, though. It would take a lot of
work to build a system that people want to write in and build the
software required to make it a reasonable choice for new development.

Also, there's no reason why the language couldn't look a lot like
Modula-2. The biggest problem I see is twofold. First, the world seems
to have decided that object orientation is essential for compiled
imperative languages. Second, the hot languages among the sort of people
who gravitated to Modula-2 seem to be in the functional family. It's
been 20 years since the ISO decided to screw up Modula-2, and the rest
of the programming world hasn't stood still. It would be hard to catch
up.
--
Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@brokersys.com)
Sto pro veritate

<jguthrie@brokersys.com> wrote in message
news:5v6od5-9u8.ln1@chromite.brokersys.com...
>
> Yes, that really DOES constitute a failure. Without an active and
> reasonably large community, you don't get compilers for new platforms
> or even fixes for the defects in the extant compilers.

Modula-2 compilers are available for the .NET platform, and for MacOS X.
What other new platforms are you referring to?

> You also don't get libraries for new functionality.

That doesn't follow. With .NET Modula-2 you get access to the libraries and
functionality of the .NET framework (70,000+ units?). I haven't had a close
look at the MacOS X compiler but I would be surprised it it doesn't have the
ability to call the MacOS X libraries.

>
> Also, there's no reason why the language couldn't look a lot like
> Modula-2. The biggest problem I see is twofold. First, the world seems
> to have decided that object orientation is essential for compiled
> imperative languages.

Anybody who wants object-orientation in a Modula-2 style language should use
Component Pascal. After all it is a direct descendant of Modula-2 and could
just as well be called Component Modula or Component Oberon.

--
Chris Burrows
CFB Software
http://www.cfbsoftware.com/cp

Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware@hotmail.com> wrote:
> <jguthrie@brokersys.com> wrote in message
> news:5v6od5-9u8.ln1@chromite.brokersys.com...

>> Yes, that really DOES constitute a failure. Without an active and
>> reasonably large community, you don't get compilers for new platforms
>> or even fixes for the defects in the extant compilers.

> Modula-2 compilers are available for the .NET platform, and for MacOS X.
> What other new platforms are you referring to?

I run 64-bit Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris, and I have no
particular desire to do anyting with ".NET".
--
Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@brokersys.com)
Sto pro veritate

jguthrie@brokersys.com wrote:
> Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>><jguthrie@brokersys.com> wrote in message
>>news:5v6od5-9u8.ln1@chromite.brokersys.com...
>
>
>>>Yes, that really DOES constitute a failure. Without an active and
>>>reasonably large community, you don't get compilers for new platforms
>>>or even fixes for the defects in the extant compilers.
>
>
>
>>Modula-2 compilers are available for the .NET platform, and for MacOS X.
>>What other new platforms are you referring to?
>
>
> I run 64-bit Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris, and I have no
> particular desire to do anyting with ".NET".
I have no DESIRE either, but my company requires all new development for
business systems to use .net or some other proprietary <crap>
development system.

--

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library: http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project: http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford

<jguthrie@brokersys.com> wrote in message
news:hbvqd5-3s8.ln1@chromite.brokersys.com...
> Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> <jguthrie@brokersys.com> wrote in message
>> news:5v6od5-9u8.ln1@chromite.brokersys.com...
>
>
>> Modula-2 compilers are available for the .NET platform, and for MacOS X.
>> What other new platforms are you referring to?
>
> I run 64-bit Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris

I haven't done any *nix based development since the early 90's so haven't
tried it myself but GNU Modula-2 is one compiler in development for such
systems.

--
Chris Burrows
CFB Software
http://www.cfbsoftware.com/modula2

"graham.kerr.stark@googlemail.com" <graham.stark@virtual-worlds.biz> wrote
in message
news:7c9a0c9f-3394-43de-8ece-3f8f1d45f650@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
> I was a big Modula-2 user from the days of Topspeed, through to
> about 2001. We built simulation models (you can play with one here, if
> you're interested:
> http://bized.co.uk/virtual/economy/model/ - that's XDS Modula running
> on Linux with a Java front end).
>
> I haven't posted here in many years. The group was busier then!
Ditto.
>
> I don't think we could have achieved anything like we did if we hadn't
> switched to this family of languages (first Turbo Pascal, then Modula,
> now I use Ada quite a lot (better support, uglier language) whilst
> former colleagues use Delphi(ditto) ).
>
My story is very similar. I cut my teeth on BBC Basic and Modula2 was the
first language I learned properly (no alternative - it's what we were taught
at Uni). I then moved on to Visual Basic and now Java.
> So, I have two questions:
>
> 1) Why have these languages failed? Ada and Delphi are alive to an
> extent, but none dominate, and - lets' face it Modula-2 is barely used
> at all. At first sight, they offer so many advantages, especially in
> clarity and type safety.
>
I hope I'm not over simplifying when I saw - object orientation is the main
reason IMHO Modula2 died. Agree completely that clarity and type safety
were very very strong with m2 - but I never saw (though I bow to others) a
decent
way of m2 handling objects. To my mind, the best m2 compiler I ever used
was Sun's. I played a lot with the FST M2 for DOS and m2amiga on the Amiga
(not surprisingly) but Sun's modula2 compiler was excellent. OTTOMH none
of these handled objects very well and IIRC m2amiga was the only one that
came close with its AmigaTreasures library.



> 2) Is it fixable? Can anyone imagine a language in this tradition that
> might be a hit? What would it look like?
>

I fear it's not fixable. Recently, I took a course with the open
university (www.open.ac.uk) - course code M263 if anyone's interested. The
title is "building blocks of software" but it's basically a 2nd year
computer science course that I've heard called other things like Data
Structures and Algorithms. I was very disappointed with the "course code"
(which is m263 specific) - to me it would have been a perfect opportunity to
use something that's heavily typed like Modula2 to show off algorithms like
recursion, different sort methods etc. In fact the m263 course code was
IMHO a lot harder to comprehend than modula2.
This brings me back to the point - if academia has moved away from languages
like m2 in teaching rather basic algorithm design (efficiency etc) then I'd
very much doubt that m2 could ever resurface.

> I have my own views but would love to know what you all think.
>
> Graham

My own view is that where possible, you use the best tool for the job. I'm
not a C programmer, but if I were, I'd use gcc on a UNIX box. I would not
look for a Windows option. If I wanted to do something graphics intensive,
I'd head for OpenGL on a Mac. Back to the plot, if I were writing a course
textbook for m263, then I'd use Modula2 and the beauty is it's available for
most platforms (or certainly it was).

I think m2 failed because of a perceived lack of oo support. Therein lies
the problem - m2 isn't and shouldn't be an oo language.

I would dearly love to see m2 come back in the teaching of computer science
but I think that ship has sailed. For it to happen, there would need to be
a really good open source m2 compiler available for most platforms aimed
squarely at academia. Without a huge amount of work, oo m2 is a
non-runner.

Cheers
Rob

Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> jguthrie@brokersys.com wrote:
>> Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>Modula-2 compilers are available for the .NET platform, and for MacOS X.
>>>What other new platforms are you referring to?

>> I run 64-bit Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris, and I have no
>> particular desire to do anyting with ".NET".

> I have no DESIRE either, but my company requires all new development for
> business systems to use .net or some other proprietary <crap>
> development system.

I have been developing professionally (that is, as part of my day job)
for Linux since 1995. Since 1998, it's been the only operating system
I've been paid to write for. So, not only do I not have any desire to
work wit .NET, I have no particular incentive to do so, either.

That's not really the point, though. The point is that you need a
robust community to continue a technology. Is the Modula-2 community
robust? Well, apparently it's robust enough to support compilers on
systems other than the ones I use and develop for. I think it's safe to
say that the interest level in Modula-2 development among the general
programming population is not on the ascendancy and it's tough to even
maintain a user community if you aren't attracting enough new users.

Does that mean M2 has failed? That's a matter of perspective. It's
clear that Mr. Burrow's opinion is different from mine.
--
Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@brokersys.com)
Sto pro veritate

Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware@hotmail.com> wrote:
> <jguthrie@brokersys.com> wrote in message
> news:hbvqd5-3s8.ln1@chromite.brokersys.com...
>> Chris Burrows <cfbsoftware@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> <jguthrie@brokersys.com> wrote in message
>>> news:5v6od5-9u8.ln1@chromite.brokersys.com...

>>> Modula-2 compilers are available for the .NET platform, and for MacOS X.
>>> What other new platforms are you referring to?

>> I run 64-bit Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and Solaris

> I haven't done any *nix based development since the early 90's so haven't
> tried it myself but GNU Modula-2 is one compiler in development for such
> systems.

Yes, and it appears to be at about at the same stage of development as it
was when I last looked at it several years ago. Contrast this with other
GCC supported languages, such as FORTRAN and Ada, whose compilers have gone
through multiple revisions with significant enhancement and extension in
the mean time.

I have access to a staggering variety of languages that are prepackaged,
which come with extensive library support, which are not part of the GCC,
and which are all available for me to install with the click of a mouse.
Mercury and Haskell and ML and the really cool Smalltalk system called
Squeak and the parallel language Erlang and at least four different
flavors of Lisp. Heck, there's even a Pascal. (Two, actually, but one
is part of the GCC.)

That doesn't count the "scripting languages" (Perl, Python, Ruby, etc.)
that have only one implementation, but dozens of available packages to
support everything from arcade-type game development to building robust
Internet servers. Now, you'll never see the sort of activity with a
language like Modula-2 (or even C, C++, and the like) that you do with a
scripting language because the barrier to entry is so low with a
scripting language. Any fool can program in them, and most of them do.
Anyway, it's not a fair comparison. However, if you want to know what
a robust user community looks like, that's it.

For Modula-2, I've got mocka and m2c prepackaged Neither of which seems
to have much work going on with them. Not with the packaged versions,
anyway. I CAN download and fiddle around with GM2 (well, I can once my
Internet service comes back up, which it will have by the time you read
this or you won't be able to read it) but I've got other things I'd
rather fiddle around with.
--
Jonathan Guthrie (jguthrie@brokersys.com)
Sto pro veritate

lk wrote:
> "graham.kerr.stark@googlemail.com" <graham.stark@virtual-worlds.biz> wrote
> in message
> news:7c9a0c9f-3394-43de-8ece-3f8f1d45f650@m73g2000hsh.googlegroups.com...
>
>>Hi,
>> I was a big Modula-2 user from the days of Topspeed, through to
>>about 2001. We built simulation models (you can play with one here, if
>>you're interested:
>>http://bized.co.uk/virtual/economy/model/ - that's XDS Modula running
>>on Linux with a Java front end).
>>
>>I haven't posted here in many years. The group was busier then!
>
> Ditto.
>
>>I don't think we could have achieved anything like we did if we hadn't
>>switched to this family of languages (first Turbo Pascal, then Modula,
>>now I use Ada quite a lot (better support, uglier language) whilst
>>former colleagues use Delphi(ditto) ).
>>
>
> My story is very similar. I cut my teeth on BBC Basic and Modula2 was the
> first language I learned properly (no alternative - it's what we were taught
> at Uni). I then moved on to Visual Basic and now Java.
>
>>So, I have two questions:
>>
>>1) Why have these languages failed? Ada and Delphi are alive to an
>>extent, but none dominate, and - lets' face it Modula-2 is barely used
>>at all. At first sight, they offer so many advantages, especially in
>>clarity and type safety.
>>
>
> I hope I'm not over simplifying when I saw - object orientation is the main
> reason IMHO Modula2 died. Agree completely that clarity and type safety
> were very very strong with m2 - but I never saw (though I bow to others) a
> decent
> way of m2 handling objects. To my mind, the best m2 compiler I ever used
> was Sun's. I played a lot with the FST M2 for DOS and m2amiga on the Amiga
> (not surprisingly) but Sun's modula2 compiler was excellent. OTTOMH none
> of these handled objects very well and IIRC m2amiga was the only one that
> came close with its AmigaTreasures library.
>
>
>
>
>>2) Is it fixable? Can anyone imagine a language in this tradition that
>>might be a hit? What would it look like?
>>
>
>
> I fear it's not fixable. Recently, I took a course with the open
> university (www.open.ac.uk) - course code M263 if anyone's interested. The
> title is "building blocks of software" but it's basically a 2nd year
> computer science course that I've heard called other things like Data
> Structures and Algorithms. I was very disappointed with the "course code"
> (which is m263 specific) - to me it would have been a perfect opportunity to
> use something that's heavily typed like Modula2 to show off algorithms like
> recursion, different sort methods etc. In fact the m263 course code was
> IMHO a lot harder to comprehend than modula2.
> This brings me back to the point - if academia has moved away from languages
> like m2 in teaching rather basic algorithm design (efficiency etc) then I'd
> very much doubt that m2 could ever resurface.
>
>
>>I have my own views but would love to know what you all think.
>>
>>Graham
>
>
> My own view is that where possible, you use the best tool for the job. I'm
> not a C programmer, but if I were, I'd use gcc on a UNIX box. I would not
> look for a Windows option. If I wanted to do something graphics intensive,
> I'd head for OpenGL on a Mac. Back to the plot, if I were writing a course
> textbook for m263, then I'd use Modula2 and the beauty is it's available for
> most platforms (or certainly it was).
>
> I think m2 failed because of a perceived lack of oo support. Therein lies
> the problem - m2 isn't and shouldn't be an oo language.

OO has been grafted onto many other languages. Fortran is now highly
object oriented and alive and well.

>
> I would dearly love to see m2 come back in the teaching of computer science
> but I think that ship has sailed. For it to happen, there would need to be
> a really good open source m2 compiler available for most platforms aimed
> squarely at academia. Without a huge amount of work, oo m2 is a
> non-runner.
>
> Cheers
> Rob
>
>


--

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

Fortran Library: http://www.fortranlib.com

Support the Original G95 Project: http://www.g95.org
-OR-
Support the GNU GFortran Project: http://gcc.gnu.org/fortran/index.html

If you want to do the impossible, don't hire an expert because he knows
it can't be done.

-- Henry Ford