Links to interesting Modula-2 web-sites

Copyright © (1998-2002) by www.modulAware.com

• Modula-2 FAQ at www.arjay.bc.ca/Modula-2/m2faq.html
• Visual C++ programming examples for W95/WNT rewritten in XDS Modula-2 at www.nhm-wien.ac.at/Petzold
• Learn how to program in XDS Modula-2 under W95/WNT (in German) at www.iti.tu-graz.ac.at/en/teaching/einf_lab/XDS/Modula2.htm
• XDS Modula-2 and Oberon-2 eXtended Development System web-site:
  Complete documentation of the XDS compiler and library.
  Description of ISO Modula-2 library interface modules.
  Download XDS pre-releases and trial versions.
  Download H2D, the free C-header to Modula-2 definition module converter.
• The ModulaTor: Modula-2 and Oberon-2 articles with many programming examples.
  Description of ISO Modula-2 library interface modules with example and test programs, written in Modula-2 and Oberon-2.
  Programming language comparisons and critiques (C, C++, Edison, Pascal).
• Other Modula-2 web-sites are listed in the Modula-2 Webring at www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?ring=modula2;list
• Learn how to program in Modula-2 at www.ise.fhg.de/personal_home_pages/hubertus/texte/chap01.html (sorry, the link is now dead) or www-staff.lboro.ac.uk/~elmao3/mod2tut.html (sorry, the link is now dead)
• Pointer safety in Modula-2 (How to detect dangling pointers) www.PeterHolz.com/language.php?name=Modula

• Producing cohorts of sandwich graduates

  On a rainy day in the Provence, where the probability of rain is 65 out of 365, one feels like the world is going to end. It's a strange correlation that AltaVista found the following article on such a rainy day:

  A case against Modula-2

  at http://www.mk.dmu.ac.uk/~gperkins/Language/Debate/antimod2.htm
  Is M2 suitable as a first language to teach "Computer Science and Computing undergraduates"?

  [Due to its defects and weaknesses, is M2 not suitable, not even for] ... "producing cohorts of sandwich graduates" ...

  wrote Graham Perkins from De Montfort University Milton Keynes in this article in June 1993. It would be interesting to know what programming language they have choosen for teaching after the above referenced article was written, and what experiences they made with that (other?) language.

  I don't want to summarize or criticize this article here, but from reading Graham's article, I got the impression that one of the selection goal was, to find a language, were students could make less errors.
  Only one example: Graham didn't like case sensitivity of identifiers in M2. I'd recommend students having problems with case sensitive identifiers to study politics or infotainment. ;-)
  Graham also says, M2 is too complicated. Here I agree with him. And ISO M2 even added more complexity later. He obviously knew about Oberon-2 in 1993. But I guess, O2 was also ruled out because of case-sensitivity.

  Anti-Anti-Modula-2

  An employer and UK tax payer comments

  by Mark Morgan Lloyd, mark_tbu@cix.compulink.co.uk, 30-Oct-1999

  Some of the points Graham makes are extremely pertinent, for example his comment that case-sensitivity encourages novices to introduce numerous identifiers with similar spelling but different capitalisation. However, I'd point out that there is no harm in a language or implementation allowing errors of style unless the staff member marking the assignments is unprepared or unable to point them out where appropriate. The same applies to absence of comments, poor choice of names, inappropriate choice of functional units and data types and so on.

  The area that I do believe his logic falls down badly is that he is not distinguishing sufficiently between the language, implementations of it, and platforms supporting the development environment and target code. It is totally inappropriate to criticise Modula-2 because the TopSpeed/Clarion implementation does not conform to a standard that was unpublished when the product came out, particularly since almost in the same breath he rubbishes both the libraries suggested by Wirth and those later implemented by Logitech which TopSpeed weighed and found wanting.

  In addition, I cannot follow his reasoning when he criticises Modula-2 for not supporting the Windows API or X, after all they are so different in structure, tradition and purpose that customising a language for one of them would almost certainly make fitting it to the other a kludge and would be likely to make the resulting implementation unusable for systems and embedded programming.

  I'm not going to try to pretend that Modula-2 has a great future ahead of it and is about to displace the current main-stream languages. However, as a teaching tool which is sufficient to introduce the concepts of a strongly-typed procedural language it still has a lot going for it: fairly complete, capable of real-world jobs, and a good demonstration of underlying concepts which other tools have taken on board as they've matured.

  Further [anti-]anti-Modula-2 comments are welcome. If you want to add further comments, please send them to modulAware.com.

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