Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!romp!auschs!awdprime!sanders.austin.ibm.com!sanders From: sanders@peyote.cactus.org (Tony Sanders) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: General Purpose Forth Message-ID: <5931@awdprime.UUCP> Date: 14 Mar 91 20:23:53 GMT References: <3729.27db5037@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> <13837@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Sender: news@awdprime.UUCP Reply-To: Tony Sanders Lines: 36 Originator: sanders@sanders.austin.ibm.com In article <13837@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> bouma@cs.purdue.EDU (William J. Bouma) writes: > seems proof that Forth was never meant to be general purpose, that the > type issue was not dealt with long ago. Lets change "general purpose" to "popular" because certainly Forth is general purpose. You can write games, op systems, etc. I don't think Forth was intended to be popular, and I'm glad. As for the "type issue" don't constrain yourself to a single way of thinking about problems. Just because you don't find Forth useful for what you are doing there is a whole world of people with different problems to solve. > Forth has not gotten any attention is because it has failed to keep up > with the latest inovations in computer languages. It has nothing to do I don't think Forth isn't popular because "it has failed to keep up with latest innovations" but that it's simply odd like old HP calculators, some love them, some hate them, they certainly are NOT for the masses. Forth's blessing is it's simplicity. Forth makes you think about problems in a different way, that alone is worth it. IMHO, The "latest innovations" are next to worthless. This is why people still program in asm, basic, cobol and fortran. The "lastest innovations" just aren't that much better. There ain't no great salvation waiting to be discovered just over the next hill. There are small advances and good ideas that have a lifetime and then they will be replaced with something a little better. Which isn't to say that we havn't come a long way already, just that there is still a long way to go. BTW: Is anyone out there willing to mail me UNIX source for forth-83? please let me know if you are and I'll give the address to mail to. -- sanders@peyote.cactus.org First rule of software: Throw the first one away. and so on... For every message of the day, a new improved message will arise to overcome it. I am not an IBM representative, I speak only for myself.