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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What's WRONG with Forth?
Message-ID: <2545.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 29 Mar 91 23:30:33 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 67


 Date: 03-15-91 (20:57)              Number: 1505 of 1557
   To: GARY SMITH                    Refer#: NONE
 From: CHRIS WATERS                    Read: NO
 Subj: WHAT'S WRONG WITH FORTH?      Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 Reply to: cbbrowne csi.uottawa.ca (Christopher Browne (055908))
  Subject: Re: Forth in CS

 >         BEGIN / REPEAT / WHILE / UNTIL / AGAIN
 >                   - The combo's of these words are not unique to Forth

 The NAMES may not be, but some of the structures that have been built
 using these words are not.  Don't mistake the name for the actual
 function.  I have yet to see a structure like:

    BEGIN
      WHILE
      WHILE
    UNTIL
      ELSE-WHILE
      ELSE-WHILE
    END-WHILE

 In any language but Forth.  While I may not use a structure like this
 myself (!) I have seen it done in Forth, and could not really see it
 easily implemented in any other language except, perhaps, LISP.  A
 trivial example, perhaps, but still significant.

 >         JUMP Tables/Vectored Words
 >                   - Have been used in Assembly Language for years...

 Sure they have, but hardly as true language STRUCTURES!  I have seen
 some very powerful and complex structures built in Forth that use
 various forms of tables unlike anything I've seen in any other language.

 Also, Forth lets you define all of the above; something the simple Algol
 derived languages do NOT!  Personally, I see elements in Forth that
 should be fascinating to CS people; stuff as different and fascinating,
 from a purely academic point of view, as LISP.  If you think that CS
 people are not interested in Forth, you're sadly mistaken. SOME CS
 people may not be interested in Forth, but I feel this is their loss.
 Try UCSD.  Last I heard (which was several years ago) they were doing
 some pretty interesting stuff with Forth.

 Traditional Forth, with its "threaded strings" is a close cousin of
 LISP, at least in my eyes.  And a simple colon definition itself is an
 interesting data structure.  And one unlike anything found in any other
 language.  You could probably cobble up something similar in LISP, using
 a specialized EVAL, just as you can write a List interpreter in Forth.
 But this hardly means that Forth is of no interest to CS people.

 If you want CS people interested in Forth, look to the LISP crowd.  I
 think you'll find that many of them have been quietly using Forth (and
 being fascinated by it) for years.
 ---
 Tag 1.3 * Cockroaches rule the Earth.  Pass it on.

 PCRelay:IDCBBS -> #918
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