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From: cep4478@ultb.UUCP (C.E. Piggott)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth in C (was Re: Forth from scratch)
Message-ID: <1611@ultb.UUCP>
Date: 14 Nov 89 05:07:31 GMT
References: <4839@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <2570@fai.UUCP> <4969@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> <2590@fai.UUCP>
Reply-To: cep4478@ultb.UUCP (C.E. Piggott)
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology, Information Systems
Lines: 44


I have been watching this for quite some time, and trying to follow and
learn (and I think it's working, too)...but I've got some questions.

For one, let's say you've got a FORTH written in C.  If you want to
create something and make it a primitive (for example, let's say that
you want the word CWEMIT to emit a letter in morse code - [grin] ).

From what I gather from the conversation at hand:

- In a FORTH FORTH, CWEMIT will never be a primitive.

- In an ASSEMBLY-based FORTH (is this what "traditional" means to you
		guys?), CWEMIT is a primitive if it's implemented in
		assembler.

- In a C FORTH, it will only be a primitive if CWEMIT is written in C
		(useable in FORTH)



Believe it or not, I'm a beginner here for the second time ... I used
to play with forth many, many, many years ago on Apple ]['s -- even
wrote a few BBS's (when they were popular) and a neat little text
editor.

The funny thing is that now, after having received the FORMAL education
in software engineering (iterative approach: pascal, modula/2, and
lots and lots of C - plus all the usual crap), I find FORTH to be
much more difficult to deal with - the concepts behind it are much
clearer now, but the actual quirkiness of it while at the console are
a little tougher for me.  I'm no slouch, mind you, would R.I.T. let
slouch through the works?!?  (Hmmf.)

Just a few thoughts; hoping perhaps if I make myself known as a poor
college student, somebody will feel sorry for me and mail me a book
they don't need any more. (smiley face optional, here)

Thanks guys, I'm really enjoying this newsgroup, esp. due to the
high quality of articles and low amount of QRM.

				Christopher Piggott, ARS: N2JGW

P.S. Phil, I am cep4478@ultb.isc.rit.edu