A history of the Oz multiparadigm language

Abstract

Oz is a programming language designed to support multiple programming paradigms in a clean factored way that is easy to program despite its broad coverage. It started in 1991 as a collaborative effort by the DFKI (Germany) and SICS (Sweden) and led to an influential system, Mozart, that was released in 1999 and widely used in the 2000s for practical applications and education. We give the history of Oz as it developed from its origins in logic programming, starting with Prolog, followed by concurrent logic programming and constraint logic programming, and leading to its two direct precursors, the concurrent constraint model and the Andorra Kernel Language (AKL). We give the lessons learned from the Oz effort including successes and failures and we explain the principles underlying the Oz design. Oz is defined through a kernel language, which is a formal model similar to a foundational calculus, but that is designed to be directly useful to the programmer. The kernel language is organized in a layered structure, which makes it straightforward to write programs that use different paradigms in different parts. Oz is a key enabler for the book Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming (MIT Press, 2004). Based on the book and the implementation, Oz has been used successfully in university-level programming courses starting from 2001 to the present day. CCS Concepts: • Social and professional topics → Computing education; • Theory of computation → Constraint and logic programming; Process calculi; Operational semantics; • Software and its engineering → Distributed programming languages; Object oriented languages; Functional languages; Constraint and logic languages; Data flow languages; Multiparadigm languages; Semantics; Graphical user interface languages; • Human-centered computing → User interface programming; User interface toolkits.

A Systematic Mapping of Introductory Programming Languages for Novice Learners

“…Highly visual programming languages such as Scratch, Alice, Snap, and Blockly fall into the former category where their audience often ranged from those between 8 -16 years of age [12]- [14], [38], [39]. In contrast, text-based learning environments such as Kojo, Hackety Hack, Oz, and Curry were seen to target older audiences while typically covering more advanced concepts as well as basics [40], [41]. For this review, the main focus was given to languages targeting audiences of the primary education level as most novices are introduced to programming at this time as per many school curriculums [42]- [44].…”