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From: cwpjr@cbnewse.att.com (clyde.w.jr.phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth and CS
Summary: CS Good SE Bad How True
Message-ID: <1991Mar7.185820.29827@cbnewse.att.com>
Date: 7 Mar 91 18:58:20 GMT
References: <9103011826.AA19197@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <13640@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <13700@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
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Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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In article <13700@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, bouma@cs.purdue.EDU (William J. Bouma) writes:
> In article <1991Mar5.155721.24659@isis.cs.du.edu> jwoehr@isis.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr) writes:
> >	Seriously, Bill, it seems to me from my admittedly worm's-eye
> >view that about 66% of Comp Sci is parser and expression theory. Forth
> >ain't got no expressions. We are right and the rest of the world is
> >wrong, now get with the program, dude!!!
> 
>     (Where have I been?)
>     
>     Even if language recognition were useless I would still think it
>     was worth studying.  How can we know the right way of doing something
>     unless we explore all the possibilities?  I found it very interesting
>     to discover what languages can be recognized by computer and how to
>     write code to do such.  That Forth is so easy to parse makes it boring.
>     Parsing is fun!
> 
>     If people want to criticize an area of CS, try Software Engineering.
> -- 
> Bill <bouma@cs.purdue.edu>

It's such a pleasure to see a discussion with passion, humour, knowledge
and wisdom and with none of the egoist malarky so prevelent in discussion
of *almost anything these days*.

Let's pat each other on the back. 8^)

I feel that language recognition is a fine pursuit but FORTH
I feel is correct in asserting that computer programming
should not force "expression" in the manner that CS compliant
languages do. This is classic FORTH philosophy as "expressed"
by Jack above. 8^)

I feel that FORTH is a right for it's uses. I agree that we should
know as much as we can before claiming we have a "correct solution"
but this is a rare luxury. ie I'll use FORTH till something
"more correct" grabs me...so keep up the good work and maybe
we'll share some fruit later on.

Writing code to parse particular dialects or expression domains
may have applicability to FORTH in the future, as we evolve into
browser and free form language domain usage. Regardless it will
be used in "mainstream" application and so it should.

I have a question, tho. Is "natyral"
( i like that sp mstke , my computer wouldn't )
language recognition a part of parser/expression theory
and or does it pose a eventual threat to all other forms
of constricted language parsing?

Clyde