Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by groovy2shoes 3454 days ago
Since when is Go "based on Oberon"? Pike himself claims that it was "based on C", with obvious influence from his own work on Squeak and Newsqueak.
2 comments
nickpsecurity 3454 days ago
The last history people here gave me had him describing the joy of programming in the safe, fast Oberon-2. And wanting to re-create that with the new language. Resulting language is very Wirth-like in style, esp simplicity, compile speed focus, and safety. Modified with C syntax, concurrency from Limbo, and I dont recall what else. Clearly way closer to Oberon-2 or Modula's than to BCPL like C copied/extended.
link
pjmlp 3453 days ago
The method definition syntax, package model and unsafe package are taken from Oberon-2.

You missed that Robert Griesemer is also part of the Go team.

link
groovy2shoes 3453 days ago
I didn't miss that at all. According to Pike, it was actually Griesemer's idea to start with C.
link
pjmlp 3453 days ago
Wasn't aware of it.

In any case, my view is a bit different, I see Go as a mix of an AOT version of Limbo mixed with bits of Oberon-2.

link
groovy2shoes 3453 days ago
I definitely "feel" the Limbo influence, but I've not worked with Oberon-2 (only the original Oberon, and only a bit), so I didn't pick up on it. I do "feel" the C influence as well, though.
link