Modula-3

One of the few languages out there designed as a systems language from the outset. Originally developed by Acorn USA an operating system development tool and then called Modula-2+, it added multitasking, threading and multi programming features to the Modula-2 programming language, but M2 itself is a development of Pascal by its original author and adds separately compiled modules, stricter & clearer syntax and a host of system programming additions to Pascal in addition to a general clean up of the language features. Modula 3 is a development that adds memory management (garbage collection), type & generic safety features, generic programming, better exception handling and object-oriented extensions to Modula-2+. There is also an obscure variant called simply Modula-3* that adds strong parallel processing features to the language.

Obliq

Obliq is an interpreted domain specific programming language that is shipped with later versions of the Modula-3 System. It is intended to be used to program web "agents" (in a much wider understanding than agents are used in normal computer speak), in other words a utility programming language for the web rather than a scripting language of any sort and is in this reminiscent of WebL (Oberon variant).

A list of OS/2 implementations of Modula-3

• SRC Modula 3 - Open source - Discontinued
• Modula 3 Reboot - Open source - Current?

OS/2 text editors with Modula 3 support

• jEdit - Java based editor - Modula 3 syntax highlighting built in - Current.

A list of DOS implementations of Modula-3

• SRC Modula 3 - Open source - Discontinued
• M3PC-Klagenfurt - Open source - Discontinued

Publications

• Elcomsoft: Modula-3; an annotated bibliography
• G. Nelson (ed.): System Programming with Modula-3 - 1990 - Prentice Hall - ISBN 0-13-590464-1
• Joseph Bergin: Object-Oriented Data Abstraction in Modula-3 - 1997
• Michel R. Dagenais: Building Distributed OO Applications: Modula-3 Objects at Work - Draft Version - 1997
• Luca Cardelli, Jim Donahue, Mick Jordan, Bill Kalsow and Greg Nelson: The Modula-3 Type System - In PDF format
• Luca Cardelli: Typeful Programming - In PDF format
• Luca Cardelli, James Donahue, Lucielle Glassman, Mick Jordan, Bill Kalsow and Greg Nelson: The Modula-3 Report (Revised) - In PDF format - 1989

Introductory material

• Swaminathan Sankararaman and Bojan Durickovic: Modula-3 - CS 520 Final Report - 2008 - In PDF format

Obliq

• Luca Cardelli: Obliq - A language with distributed scope - In PDF format - 1994.
• Luca Cardelli: A Language with Distributed Scope - In PDF format - 1995.
• Luca Cardelli and Krishna A. Bharat: Distributed Applications in a Hypermedia Setting - In PDF format - 1995.
• Luca Cardelli: Global Computation - In PDF format - 1996.
• Luca Cardelli: Mobile Computation (Position Paper) - In PDF format - 1995 - Obliq related.
• Luca Cardelli and Krishna A. Bharat: Migratory Applications - In PDF format - 1997
• Luca Cardelli and Rowan Davis: Service Combinators for Web Computing - In PDF format - 1997/9 - Obliq related.

Modula-3*

• Ernst A. Heinz: MODULA-3*: An Efficiently compilable extension of Modula-3 for problem-oriented explicitly parallel programming

Links

• Modula-3 Org - Info and links on the Modula 3 language.

USENET

• comp.lang.modula3 - Very low volume - Go to the Google groups version if you or your ISP are newsgroup challenged in some way.

Standards

• The revised version of the original Modula-3 report and the associated paper below
• Some useful Modula-3 interfaces.