Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!udel!mmdf
From: pfaff@gemini.asd.contel.com (Ray Pfaff - Oakwood 457 934-8162)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re:  YALW (Yet Another Language War)
Message-ID: <19135@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 6 Jul 89 21:24:35 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 21

Phil Stone writes:
>I have problems with FORTH in large applications, but it is definitely
>an excellent language for quick implementation, and is definitely not
>just a "joke."

Actually I have used Forth before and I like the language, but as you 
pointed out it isn't very useful for a large project which involves many
people working in a parallel effort, not to mention that it fosters
bottom-up programming and hacking to the extreme (probably the reasons
why I like it).  I stand by my statement about it being a joke in the Govern-
ment contracting arena, because I`ve often hear the following lines when
discussing a project:

person A: The Government wants us to change our real-time exec and C soft-
ware to run in a Unix and Ada environment (...followed by a description of
the most horrendous other conditions to be met...)

person B:  Oh great!  Why don't we write it in Forth instead !
(laughter from both parties)
Maybe I should be a little more specific;  I don't think Forth the language is
a joke, but it certainly has been used as the punchline for quite a few.