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From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re:  What makes Forth Forth?
Message-ID: <9012051500.AA18759@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 4 Dec 90 20:44:54 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: Mitch Bradley <wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV>
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 19

My two favorite Forth attributes are the ease of creating a new
definition and the ability to decompile.

I tend to do a lot of "polishing" on my code, and that often
involves factoring out subordinate functions.  Forth definitions
have very little "boilerplate", so the psychological barrier to
creating a new one is minimal.

The decompiler helps me to remember what something does and how
it works.  The need for a decompiler is reduced in an environment
where the source is always on-line, but I routinely use a variety
of different machines with different I/O configurations.  The source
code is often inconvenient to access, but the decompiler is always
there.

For me, relatively small amounts of inconvenience can significantly
affect the way I work.

Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM


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