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From: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: C compared to Forth
Message-ID: <1522.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 14 Aug 90 03:08:04 GMT
References: <9008111941.AA11132@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
Lines: 58

In <9008111941.AA11132@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM writes:
> > If you look at the language itself and not the libraries.  I say that
> > because while PD or ShareWare versions of Forth are pretty bare bones,
> > so are most PD or ShareWare C's.
> 
> Except that why would anybody bother with a PD or shareware C when you can
> get Turbo C (which is a dynamite product) for about $100?  If your time
> is worth anything at all, the price is worth it many times over.
> 
> The only freely-available C worth bothering with is Gnu C, which isn't
> barebones by any stretch of the imagination.  (It also doesn't run on PC's).
> 
> Few people bother with stripped-down C these days.

You can also get Power C from Mix Software for $20.  An extra $10 gets you
the library source.  As to why people don't bother with a PD/Shareware C?
I think that the answer is that having compatibility is much more important
than being able to grow the compiler into your application.  Nothing to do
with price.  Your own counter-example of gcc shows that.

> > Anyway, from the ads I've seen, the libraries available for Forth are
> > comparable to those available for C.
> 
> With one important difference: the C libraries are all more or less (usually
> more) compatible with one another, whereas every Forth library is pretty
> much an island to itself.
But is that because the various Forth vendors are "Not Invented Here" weenies,
or is it an artifact of starting from different Forth platforms in the first
place?

> > As a side note, it tickles me to see the ratio of PD/ShareWare Forths to
> > C's versus the ratio for commercial products.
> 
> Actually, it bothers me, because that means that basically nobody can make
> a living selling Forth, which means that few marketing dollars are going
> to be spent, which means that Forth may be doomed in the long run.  Idealistic
> principles aside, economics makes the world go round.  The only company in
> recent memory that has spent significant marketing dollars on Forth is Harris.
> I wonder if they would do it again?

I don't know about that part.  What I want to know is why commercial Forths
are so bloody expensive.  You don't usually even get source!  With the profane
languages that is less of an issue because you don't want to make your
compiler incompatible.  In the case of Forth, you'd want the source so
that you *could* make it compatible.  Forth Inc sells polyForth for > $3000
last I heard.  I have NEVER seen a C compiler that expensive (I don't
read the Cray audience trade rags either though).  The main problem with
ShareWare Forths is that the level of support.  Mix Software can make
money selling PC C compilers, debuggers and libraries for extremely reasonable
prices.  They have customer support.  If a cheap Forth came out, I would
buy it.  If GNU did a Forth, I might use it, but with the CopyLeft, I might
not, it depends.

-Doug

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