[HN Gopher] Lilith and Modula-2
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       Lilith and Modula-2
        
       Author : kristianp
       Score  : 53 points
       Date   : 2025-05-04 12:10 UTC (10 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (astrobe.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (astrobe.com)
        
       | junto wrote:
       | After self teaching myself BASIC and Pascal as a kid, Modula-2
       | was the language we first learnt at university in order to teach
       | us programming fundamentals. It was a nice move from Pascal for
       | me but I preferred Delphi.
       | 
       | Although the keywords in Modula-2 weren't case sensitive and
       | weren't required to be in upper case, it was preferred (guidance
       | from Niklaus Wirth) and that was just annoying.
        
         | pjmlp wrote:
         | Modula-2 didn't had OOP as standard feature, although some
         | compilers did use Modula-3 classes as extension, like XDS.
         | 
         | Was this the case or something else?
         | 
         | Always looking to improve my knowledge on Wirthian languages.
        
           | junto wrote:
           | I think it's more likely I'm misremembering. It is now over
           | 30 years ago.
           | 
           | Next on the list at university was C++, so more than likely
           | my brain is deliberately blocking out that language. :-)
        
             | emme wrote:
             | I started programming with Modula-2 and I really believe it
             | was case sensitive. In fact I remember the book I used to
             | learn it (Ogilvie) mentioning the case sensitiveness as a
             | peculiarity of the language: "if case matters in natural
             | languages, why programming languages should ignore it"
        
               | pjmlp wrote:
               | It is, as do all C derived languages.
               | 
               | After Pascal, all languages that Niklaus Wirth created
               | were case sensitive.
               | 
               | Uppercase keywords are debatable as a style, however with
               | good IDE tooling hardly an issue.
               | 
               | Similarly to BASIC and SQL, or spaces in ML languages and
               | Python, don't use Notepad like editors for them, use
               | something with autoformatter.
               | 
               | Pity that in Modula-2 case those products are long gone,
               | and I doubt many would bother with a VSCode extension or
               | something.
        
       | mncharity wrote:
       | An Emulith page[1] has a Lilith hardware manual[2]. There's a
       | brief Comdex Emulith demo.[3]
       | 
       | [1] http://pascal.hansotten.com/niklaus-wirth/lilith/emulith/ [2]
       | http://pascal.hansotten.com/uploads/lilith/docu/Lilith_hardw...
       | (pdf; 20 MB) [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob0lznzkykc
        
       | mncharity wrote:
       | Simultaneously on the front page, Oberon Pi[1].
       | 
       | [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43885478
        
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       (page generated 2025-05-04 23:01 UTC)