Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!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 Summary: some what long Message-ID: <5992@awdprime.UUCP> Date: 19 Mar 91 01:03:06 GMT References: <5931@awdprime.UUCP> <13903@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Sender: news@awdprime.UUCP Reply-To: Tony Sanders Organization: IBM AWD, Austin Lines: 43 Originator: sanders@sanders.austin.ibm.com I attempted to be brief. In article <13903@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> bouma@cs.purdue.EDU (William J. Bouma) writes: > overwhelming for me! I guess I was totally wrong when I said "Forth is > good for nothing". Hold it! Did I say that? No, you didn't say "Forth is good for nothing", sorry I implied that. Your argument is: > Forth has not gotten any attention is because it has failed to keep up > with the latest inovations in computer languages. My reply (and others): Forth HAS, OOP, structures, bitfields, enums, macros, etc. And you can easily extend the language in all kinds of neat and useful ways. Some of these packages will/have standardized over time. Most are trivial to write in the first place. . I claim the lack of attention is that Forth is strange, if you like hp RPN . . calcs you might like Forth. opinions follow (1) I bet most people have not used it enough to know if it's better or not (2) People who like Forth are as fanatic about it as are emacs users :-) >In article <5931@awdprime.UUCP> I wrote: >>IMHO, >> The "latest innovations" are next to worthless. This is why people >>... > Oh, really! What makes you such an authority? I think you need to take > some of your own advice. Namely, just because you do not use something I think it's a reasonable conclusion given that so many OLD languages are still in use WITHOUT the latest and greatest. This DOES NOT imply that the innovations are in any way "bad". (1) They are wonderful ideas worthy of praise and use (2) I don't think that their existance has affected the popularity of Forth (3) I think that Forth HAS these ideas, but they don't solve the bigger problems of software development that may never be solved (ADA is a first attempt to address some of these problems). -- sanders@peyote.cactus.org First rule of software: Throw the first one away. and so on... I am not an IBM representative, I speak only for myself.