Active Oberon is a general purpose

programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Programming languages are described in terms of their Syntax (programming languages), syntax (form) and semantics (computer science), semantics (meaning), usually def ...

developed during 1996–1998 by the group around

Niklaus Wirth Niklaus Emil Wirth ( IPA: ) (15 February 1934 – 1 January 2024) was a Swiss computer scientist. He designed several programming languages, including Pascal, and pioneered several classic topics in software engineering. In 1984, he won the Tu ...

and

Jürg Gutknecht Jürg Gutknecht (born 3 January 1949) is a Swiss computer scientist. He developed, with Niklaus Wirth, the programming language Oberon and the corresponding operating system Oberon. Biography Jürg Gutknecht was born in Bülach. He was full p ...

at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (

ETH Zurich ETH Zurich (; ) is a public university in Zurich, Switzerland. Founded in 1854 with the stated mission to educate engineers and scientists, the university focuses primarily on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ETH Zurich ran ...

). It is an extension of the programming language

Oberon Oberon () is a king of the fairy, fairies in Middle Ages, medieval and Renaissance literature. He is best known as a character in William Shakespeare's play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'', in which he is King of the Fairies and spouse of Titania ...

. The extensions aim at implementing active

objects Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...

as expressions for parallelism. Compared to its predecessors, Oberon and

Oberon-2 Oberon-2 is an extension of the original Oberon programming language that adds limited reflective programming (reflection) and object-oriented programming facilities, open arrays as pointer base types, read-only field export, and reintroduces th ...

, Active Oberon adds objects (with object-centered access protection and local activity control), system-guarded assertions, preemptive priority scheduling and a changed

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

for

methods Method (, methodos, from μετά/meta "in pursuit or quest of" + ὁδός/hodos "a method, system; a way or manner" of doing, saying, etc.), literally means a pursuit of knowledge, investigation, mode of prosecuting such inquiry, or system. In re ...

(named '' type-bound procedures'' in Oberon vocabulary). Objects may be ''active'', which means that they may be threads or processes. Unlike

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

or C#, objects may be synchronized not only with

signals A signal is both the process and the result of Signal transmission, transmission of data over some transmission media, media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processin ...

but directly on conditions. This simplifies concurrent programs and their development. As it is tradition in the Oberon world, the Active Oberon language compiler is implemented in Active Oberon. The operating system, especially the kernel, synchronizes and coordinates different active objects. Active Oberon was renamed ''Active Object System'' (AOS) in 2002, then due to trademark issues, renamed ''Bluebottle'' in 2005, and then renamed '' A2'' in 2008. An Active Oberon

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...

is the language

Zonnon Zonnon is a general purpose programming language in the line or family of the preceding languages Pascal, Modula, and Oberon. Jürg Gutknecht is the author. Its conceptual model is based on objects, definitions, implementations, and modules. I ...

References

External links

ETH Oberon (2019) Language Report

A2 Operating System & Active Oberon community in Telegram

A2 user guide and applications description
* Archiv
Language Report
{{Authority control Class-based programming languages Modula programming language family Object-oriented programming languages Procedural programming languages Oberon programming language family Systems programming languages

See also

References

External links