Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!menudo.uh.edu!sugar!ficc!peter From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Subject: Re: The powerlessness of Lisp Message-ID: Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) Organization: Xenix Support, FICC References: <1991Mar26.172536.12178@linus.mitre.org> <2QAARF@xds13.ferranti.com> <1991Mar29.164740.25066@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu> Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 22:00:09 GMT In article <1991Mar29.164740.25066@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu> wilson@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu (Paul Wilson) writes: > peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: > >In article <1991Mar26.172536.12178@linus.mitre.org> john@mingus.mitre.org (John D. Burger) writes: > >> A ``REAL source level debugger'' and incremental compilation are > >> functions of the environment. > >Just for the hell of it, let me point out that the two languages that > >have the greatest number of units out with these features *are* statically > >typed: Forth and Basic. > ^^^^^ > But Forth doesn't have a "REAL source level," so how could it have a > REAL source level debugger? > Anything where you see raw words on the stack (as opposed to variables > with names and/or types) sounds like debugging intermediate code to me. > :-) (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) This is a reasonable point, but I understand that people find other stack-based languages (POP?, Postscript) quite adequate. For programming in Forth, you have to think Forth: A-REASONABLE-POINT SWAP SET-ATTRIBUTE LANGUAGES STACK-BASED DUP POP ?HAS-ATTRIBUTE 0= ABORT" OOPS" DUP POSTSCRIPT HAS-ATTRIBUTE OTHER-PEOPLE FIND-REASONABLE SELF UNDERSTANDING SET-ATTRIBUTE FORTH PROGRAMMING-IN IF FORTH THINK THEN Oops, I left stack-based languages on the stack. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' peter@ferranti.com +1 713 274 5180. 'U` "Have you hugged your wolf today?"