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From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: What makes Forth Forth
Message-ID: <9012092322.AA04007@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 8 Dec 90 03:13:58 GMT
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Reply-To: wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
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> I have seen nothing so far that would enable me to distinguish PostScript
> from Forth.  In fact, the power and popularity of PostScript would seem
> to have proved the point already.

Forth is faster, smaller, and more malleable than PostScript.

PostScript is more regular, consistent, and elegant than Forth, and
PostScript comes with dynamite graphics.  You could take the graphics
out of PostScript and still have a nice language, but by and large,
people don't use it that way.

Fifth is nice but hasn't yet "made the cut" in terms of user community size.
Based on purely historical observations, it probably won't make it (the
chances of any particular language "making it" is, to a first approximation,
zero.)

Forth has a firm foothold in certain application areas, PostScript in others.
Those domains don't overlap much.

Some people have asked me why I chose Forth over PostScript for use in the
Sun Open Boot PROM firmware.  The answers: PostScript wouldn't have fit,
it would have been too slow (probably), and I know Forth better.

PostScript would have been easier to "sell" to the powers-that-be.

Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM