Niklaus Wirth designed Pascal, Modula-2 and Oberon, connecting language design with compiler and system construction. His project account traces their development through implementations, teaching and workstation systems rather than presenting syntax in isolation.[ref]
Summary of projects 1962-1999 by Niklaus Wirth. Pascal, Modula-2 and Oberon sections
Oberon illustrates his preference for a small explicit language definition. Its report describes type extension of records, allowing a new record type to build on an existing one. A base-typed pointer can refer to an extended record, while access to extension-specific fields requires an appropriate type test or guard. The language's value and VAR parameters also specify whether a call receives a value or access to the caller's variable.[ref]
Articles by others on the same topic
Niklaus Wirth is a Swiss computer scientist known for his significant contributions to the field of programming languages and software engineering. He is best known for designing several influential programming languages, including Pascal, Modula, and Oberon. Wirth's work emphasizes the importance of simplicity and efficiency in programming languages, and he has advocated for the systematic development of software through structured programming and algorithmic design.