Oberon compiler for win32

[vonck67]

<quoute> We used WinAos in an Operating Systems course at ETHZ <end quote>

I also frequently installed new versions of AOS. I think is it a great platform for learning operating systems. However AOS, or active objects are offering a solution for a problem these kids have not yet encoutered. (Although, look at the IPo/ad, still no multitasking). Besides, should one not introduce the messaging paradigm of Native Oberon first? And then hand out the Wy do fish need remote control".

Still, I'm looking for a platform for learning structured programming at highschool level. Here the WHILE TRUE loop as operating system will do fine.

Concerning microcontrollers as a learning platform: it is appealing to make(waerable) embedded device, take it home and have some fun with it. Schools are never letting their Lego NXT bots sleep over at the homes of their students. Their are simply not enough robots available.
So programming and electronics becomes very abstract and out of reach of kids.

<quote>Derivative Board<end quote>
For a pdip arm kit, I found one at the shop of Wouter van Ooijen.
http://www.voti.nl/winkel/catalog.html
Wouter is a teacher in emmedded programming at the Higher technical school of Utrecht. They also developped a LPC2000 board themselve and use it for a first year programming course.
He deviced the language JAL for pic programming.

So their are for me two threads to follow:
XDS Oberon  -> avr (arduino)
Oberon07     -> PDIP LPC

Last weekend I did a course on making a sound mask at the Mediamatic lab in Amsterdam.
My 4 year old son really like it. he precut the wire's for me and designed the mask.
The mixture of arts with electronics and programming is a very fertile Ione, I think. It it as a fruitfull symbiosis of the rigidity with creativity. That's propably the reason why Gutknecht mixes AOS with performance Art.

Greets,
Frans-Pieter

 
 

[BohdanT]

We used WinAos in an Operating Systems course at ETHZ and we were very pleased about how well this worked. Besides an easy-to-learn programming  language (Active Oberon), WinAos & PET also turned out to be an easy-to-learn programming environment.

I wonder what language you use for learning basic structured-programming course?
Or do you just start with the "Operating Systems"?

[staubesv]

Many years ago, Oberon/Native Oberon was used to introduce students to structured programming... the current "Introduction to Programming" course seems to use Eiffel. Other languages I've seen in use are Java/C/C++.

I think for an introduction course it's useful to have a simple Progamming Editor/IDE, that - in particular - clearly marks syntax errors in code and that can compile and run code quickly and easily. The students don't have unlimited time for programming exercises and should loose as little time as possible on anything other than the core problem.

I liked (Win)AOS because...
- modules can be very quickly unloaded, recompiled and restarted
- the language is simple and, if you like, works also well without object-orientation / concurrency support. Also, the compiler doesn't accept kind-of-anything as, for example, C-compilers do (which is sometimes hard to explain to students and can lead to many problems/mistakes)
- there aren't thousands of classes/libraries that we don't want to use in such a couse
- the system can be downloaded, installed and configured within minutes. Ok, you'll find others that can do, but think of Visual Studio ;-)
- PET has the right set of features (tabs, compile button, error marking, module tree). More is not needed for this purpose
- Because of the lack of alternatives, the students don't use compiler X with IDE Y which also makes life simpler

That's why I was a bit suprised to see embedded systems in use for learning structured programming since this implies longer development cycles and less time for the actual problem solving.

But I haven't thought about attractiveness to the students... I absolutely agree on the "have some fun" argument...

[cfbsoftware]

That's why I was a bit suprised to see embedded systems in use for learning structured programming since this implies longer development cycles and less time for the actual problem solving.

I'm not sure what sort of times you are thinking of or what sort of embedded systems you have experience with but that is not the case with Armaide. Compiles and links complete in a second or two. Any compiler error messages take you to the directly to the offending source line. Typical runtime errors (array bounds errors etc.) are trapped and displayed on the PC via a terminal emulator. The slowest part of the process involves uploading the code to the target process via a COM / USB port and that is typically less than a minute. That's a good opportunity for the student to contemplate what he has just done - he will probably realise his latest mistake before he starts to run the program ;-)

I would not like to have to return to the days when as students we had to wait 24 hours to get the results back from a compilation run. However, you can rest assured that by the time we had submitted our code it did not contain any stupid programming errors ;-)

[BohdanT]

Many years ago, Oberon/Native Oberon was used to introduce students to structured programming... the current "Introduction to Programming" course seems to use Eiffel.

Very sad  

Other languages I've seen in use are Java/C/C++.

Certainly Eiffel much better  Java/C/C++, but it is completely object-oriented programming language, and contains a lot of redundant for  basically programing education.

I liked (Win)AOS because..

Absolutely agree with all!
I next year will have to teach students programming (I'll substitute lecturer only 1 year ). And I want to use WinAos + ActiveOveron as the base system. Previously used TurboPascal (do not know what version)

I'm not sure what sort of times you are thinking of or what sort of embedded systems you have experience with but that is not the case with Armaide. Compiles and links complete in a second or two. Any compiler error messages take you to the directly to the offending source line. Typical runtime errors (array bounds errors etc.) are trapped and displayed on the PC via a terminal emulator. The slowest part of the process involves uploading the code to the target process via a COM / USB port and that is typically less than a minute. That's a good opportunity for the student to contemplate what he has just done - he will probably realise his latest mistake before he starts to run the program ;-)

I would not like to have to return to the days when as students we had to wait 24 hours to get the results back from a compilation run. However, you can rest assured that by the time we had submitted our code it did not contain any stupid programming errors ;-)

It's all good, but we need to purchase additional equipment, but it does not really!
Plus needs to be further work to train with the equipment, but programming courses we are very short.
I also doubt that some exercises (floating-point math, string manipulation, etc.) nice look at the development board.
In addition: how a student will work at home? With an emulator - I think it will be difficult