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From: bouma@cs.purdue.EDU (William J. Bouma)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Syntax
Message-ID: <13690@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 5 Mar 91 19:35:53 GMT
References: <9103031940.AA02024@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 32

In article <9103031940.AA02024@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Mitch Bradley <wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV> writes:
>To my way of thinking, any syntax more complicated than what Forth already
>has is probably too complicated.  I would even claim that Forth has a
>bit too much syntax (for example, the Forth control structures are sort
>of syntactic in nature; PostScript shows how to avoid that syntax).

    In all functional programming languages the main reason syntax is
    there is to distinguish which are the functions and which are the
    arguments.  Forth simply says,  "the arguments are on the stack".
    Without control constructs and words like : ." ( [ Forth would have
    no syntax at all. (In Postscript only {)  The Forth programmer
    makes up for the loss of syntactic information by heavy commenting
    of what is on the stack and by formatting his code to show the
    structure.  More syntax could be beneficial by requiring less com-
    menting, forcing beginners to structure code properly, and allowing
    some errors to be caught earlier.  Forth is appealing in the freedom
    it doth give, though.

    I have to dissagree with the blanket statement Mitch makes above 
    about complication.  It sounds like more of this "Forth is god"
    ramble.  For the only language that is as uncomplicated in syntax
    is Forth or one of its clones (PS included).  Is it not enough just
    to say "I like the minimal syntax Forth has for the freedom it doth
    give..."?  Why condemn every other language in the process?  Non-
    functional languages require a lot more syntax.  These languages
    have strong points just as Forth does. The ultimate language has
    not yet arrived.

    Syntax has not seriously gotten in my way, so I do
    not understand where Mitch is comming from on this.
-- 
Bill <bouma@cs.purdue.edu>