Into the Realm of Oberon

A beginner's introduction to programming, using Oberon since it is the natural descendant of the teaching languages Pascal and Modula, and because it is designed to encourage good object-oriented practices. The author begins with introducing procedures - the basic building blocks of Oberon programs - before introducing types and then type-bound procedures. Along the way, students build increasingly complex modules of Oberon code and develop a basic understanding of the advantages of object-oriented programming. As a result students coming to programming for the first time will appreciate this hands-on textbook, while readers familiar with programming but new to Oberon will find this a well-paced guide to the language.

This is a beginner's introduction to programming which uses Oberon as the programming language. The author begins with introducing procedures - the basic building blocks of Oberon programs - before introducing types and then type-bound procedures. Along the way, students will build increasingly complex modules of Oberon code and develop a basic understanding of the adavntages of object-oriented programming. As a result students coming to programming for the first time will appreciate this hands-on textbook.

i.1 Who Should Use This Book?.- i.2 What Is Programming?.- i.3 Why Oberon?.- i.4 Where to Begin.- I Procedures.- 1 Using Procedures.- 1.1 A First Program.- 1.2 Pausing for a Moment.- 1.3 Identifiers and Reserved Words.- 1.4 Comments.- 1.5 "Bugs".- 1.6 Exercises.- 2 Values and Type.- 2.1 Values.- 2.2 String and Character Values.- 2.3 Hexadecimal Numbers.- 2.4 Character and Integer Values as Hex Numbers.- 2.5 Reals and Floating-point Notation.- 2.6 Boolean Values.- 2.7 Exercises.- 3 Writing Procedures.- 3.1 Procedures with Parameters.- 3.2 Parameters and the Parameter List.- 3.3 Basic Types.- 3.4 Why Do We Need Types?.- 3.5 MODULE Definitions.- 3.6 Type Compatibility of Basic Types.- 3.7 Basic Arithmetic Operators.- 3.8 Standard Identifiers.- 3.9 Exercises.- 4 Variables and Changing Values.- 4.1 Variables and the Assignment Operator.- 4.2 Variables.- 4.3 Assignment Statements.- 4.4 String Variables and Assignments.- 4.5 Variables Versus Parameters.- 4.6 Value Parameters Versus Variable Parameters.- 4.7 Exercises.- 5 Using Modules.- 5.1 Module In.- 5.2 Modules and Program Structure.- 5.3 The Import List and Qualified Identifiers.- 5.4 Forward Declarations.- 5.5 Writing Modules.- 5.6 Exercises.- 6 Expressions and Function Procedures.- 6.1 Expressions.- 6.2 Operators and Precedence.- 6.3 Function Procedures.- 6.4 Other Standard Procedures.- 6.5 Constant Expressions.- 6.6 Scope.- 6.7 Program Planning.- 6.8 Exercises.- 7 The FOR Statement.- 7.1 The FOR Loop.- 7.2 Details of the FOR Statement.- 7.3 Nested FOR Loops.- 7.4 Exercises.- 8 The IF Statement.- 8.1 Making Decisions.- 8.2 Boolean Expressions and Relational Operators.- 8.3 Boolean Variables and Constants.- 8.4 Logical Boolean Operators.- 8.5 Partial Evaluation.- 8.6 General Forms of the IF Statement.- 8.7 Error Checking.- 8.8 Simplifying Boolean Expressions.- 8.9 Exercises.- 9 Other Looping Statements.- 9.1 Looping Statements.- 9.2 The WHILE Loop.- 9.3 The REPEAT Loop.- 9.4 The LOOP Statement.- 9.5 Looping Guidelines.- 9.6 Debugging Statements.- 9.7 Exercises.- 10 The CASE Statement.- 10.1 Choosing Alternatives.- 10.2 The CASE Statement.- 10.3 Exercises.- II Types.- 11 Working with Types.- 11.1 What Is a Type?.- 11.2 Defining New Types.- 11.3 Type Compatibility and Named Typing.- 11.4 Exercises.- 12 Array Types.- 12.1 Using Arrays.- 12.2 Why Use Arrays?.- 12.3 Details of Arrays.- 12.4 Array Assignment.- 12.5 Arrays as Parameters.- 12.6 Data Abstraction.- 12.7 Exercises.- 13 Record Types.- 13.1 Declaring Record Types.- 13.2 Details of Record Types.- 13.3 Records and Arrays.- 13.4 Exporting Record Types.- 13.5 Exercises.- 14 Extending Record Types.- 14.1 Type Extension of Records.- 14.2 Details of Extended Record Types.- 14.3 Subtyping.- 14.4 Records as Parameters.- 14.5 Abstraction and Encapsulation.- 14.6 Exercises.- 15 Pointer Types.- 15.1 What Are Pointers?.- 15.2 Details of Pointers.- 15.3 Memory Management and Pointers.- 15.4 Pointers and Type Extension.- 15.5 The WITH Statement.- 15.6 Exercises.- 16 Uses of Pointers.- 16.1 Why Use Pointers?.- 16.2 Dynamic Structures and Lists.- 16.3 Pointers as Parameters and Return Values of Functions.- 16.4 Pointers and Open Arrays.- 16.5 Exercises.- 17 Sets.- 17.1 Using Sets.- 17.2 Sets and Boolean Relations.- 17.3 Other Set Operators.- 17.4 Sets as Flags.- 17.5 Sets for Bit Manipulation.- 17.6 Exercises.- III Type-bound Procedures.- 18 Objects.- 18.1 Modular Program Design.- 18.2 Introduction to Programming with Objects.- 18.3 Exercises.- 19 Type-bound Procedures.- 19.1 Types and Procedures.- 19.2 Details of Type-bound Procedures.- 19.3 An Object Example: Generic Lists.- 19.4 Exercises.- 20 Additional Topics.- 20.1 What Else Is There?.- 20.2 Exception Handling.- 20.3 Recursion.- 20.4 Procedure Types.- 20.5 The SYSTEM Module.- 20.6 Exercises.- References.