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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: <2749.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 13 May 91 11:56:42 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 51

Category 2,  Topic 9
Message 95        Sun May 12, 1991
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 11:33 EDT
 
Bob C: yes, and no.

I made a similar plea at last year's Rochester Forth conference.  It was the
availability of fig-Forth that got me started in Forth, and I feel the need
for a low-cost and preferably public-domain implementation to let people get
their feet wet.  C.H.Ting feels likewise, which is why we now have eForth.

People will spend big bucks for a C compiler because they know it's safe. 
It's sanctioned, sanitized, and officially approved, and they "know" they can
use it to do their projects (whatever they are). Forth, on the other hand, is
an unknown, screwball language, and any newcomer who buys it for a project is
taking a risk.

HOWEVER... the fact remains that the P-D Forths are not what I would call
"professional quality."  I hit this head on when my client finally allowed me
to use Forth in a project.  I discovered that there was not a single Forth
package which I would not be embarassed to show them, and which I felt they
could use in my absence.  I couldn't sell their chief engineer -- an
accomplished assembly language programmer -- on F83, and certainly not the on
F83 metacompiler!

As far as I know, there is only one P-D Forth with anything like the kind of
"polish" exhibited in Turbo C, and that's F-PC.  I don't use F-PC, for several
reasons, not the least which is that I'm programming single-chip 8-bitters and
not IBM PCs.

(In case you're wondering, I finally found a commercial package which met my
and my client's needs, from MicroProcessor Engineering in the U.K.  It cost
$1700.  Expensive, but worth it.)

I haven't read these infamous HSForth ads, but from what I've heard, they're a
plea to a) support developers of professional Forth systems, and b) not rip
off commercial code.  I have no problem with this.  I used P-D Forths for
years, and still do; but lately I've come to appreciate that there are folks
out there scraping out a living by producing professional quality tools.  One
of the great things about Forth is that you have this choice.

- Brad
 Brad Rodriguez        | brad%candice@maccs.uucp      (God willing)
 B.RODRIGUEZ2 on GEnie | brad%candice@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
 "Shoes for industry!" | bradford@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca  (archaic)

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