Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!willett!dwp
From: dwp@willett.UUCP (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: for us beginners?  Help
Message-ID: <1435.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jul 90 03:21:42 GMT
References: <1432.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
Lines: 39

In <1432.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>, F.SERGEANT [Frank] writes:

> 1.3.  I would appreciate it if you would post or mail (809 W.  San Antonio
> St., San Marcos, TX 78666) details of what mystifies you,  what would have
> made it easier for you to feel oriented and in control,  what you object to or
> would prefer, etc. about Pygmy Forth.  The more  specifics, including
> underlying reasoning, the better.  I am interested  in such info from everyone
> else as well.

Ok, I'll give it a go.  The thing that confused me the most was that
Pygmy was based on cmForth, but I didn't know cmForth!  I managed to
pick up what I wanted to know with multiple scans of the sources (hard
copy mostly).  It seemed that I had to browse several files to find what
I thought should have been in one place.  (I didn't take notes at the
time, so I can't supply explicit references here).  The glossary seemed
to be haphazardly done.  I like the idea of a glossary, but ended up
searching the source code for what I wanted to know.  Enough bad vibes,
onto what I liked.

As a C programmer I found PUSH and POP and \ nicer than their
alternatives.  I like FOR NEXT even though I think the generality of DO
LOOP should be more convenient.  I really like the vocabulary approach
over IMMEDIATE.  One of the first things I did was to didle with the
list of files to open and meta-compile!  (It was easier than I thought
it would be).  I liked the tech notes, but I got the feeling that they
weren't complete.  I like the way files and block numbers work.  Seems
very convenient to me.  

Its been a long time (over 4months) since I first looked at Pygmy.
I like it, but haven't done anything with it yet.  If/When I go back
to it, it will be like starting fresh.  I'll know now to keep better
track of the things you want.  

-Doug


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