Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!pitt!willett!dwp
From: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What makes Forth Forth
Message-ID: <2098.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 12 Dec 90 16:30:34 GMT
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
Lines: 38

In <9012092322.AA04007@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM writes:
> 
> Forth is faster, smaller, and more malleable than PostScript.

I was wondering when that would come up.  Until we know what Forth is
and what PostScript is (or how it is fundamentally different from Forth),
we can't make those kinds of comparisons.  You might as well say that
XYZ Forth on a Z-80 is slower than ABC Forth on a 100MHz XTR-200.

> 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.

And you could add dynamic memory management and host os file I/O and
..., to Forth, but by and large no two Forth programmer would do it the
same way.  The question of "libraries", esp. given Smiley's F-PC graphics
library, is a moot point.  I quite agree that PostScript has a cleaner
conceptual model.  I'm not clear how that is a difference which is a 
difference of a kind not like the differences between existing Forths (as
per an earlier post).

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

If you could show HOW those different target domains have molded significant
differences in the languages, and what those differences are...

> 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.

If you ask people doing embedded systems with C why they would choose C over
Forth, you would at least agree on the last point:  "I know <X> better."

-Doug
---
Preferred:  dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us	Ok:  {pitt,sei,uunet}!willett!dwp