Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!gatech!udel!thomson
From: thomson@udel.EDU (Richard Thomson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: ...and a compiler.
Message-ID: <294@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: Tue, 23-Jun-87 08:32:26 EDT
Article-I.D.: louie.294
Posted: Tue Jun 23 08:32:26 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 25-Jun-87 00:42:00 EDT
References: <3027@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: thomson@udel.EDU (Richard Thomson)
Organization: University of Delaware
Lines: 42
Keywords: FORTH, Languages, Amiga

I have purchased Multi-FORTH for the Amiga from Creative Solutions.  [A full
blown review will be posted real soon now...]  As far as I know [from info in
this newsgroup] there are not many people using FORTH on the Amiga, but it does
have several advantages when compared to a compiled language for this machine.

I have investigated Lattice C (a developer's version about 1 year ago, it was
practically brain-dead) and Aztec C (better, bit still uncomfortably slow on
a 512K dual floppy system).  After checking out both of the big C choices I
have come to the conclusion that the only sane way to develop C code on the
Amiga is if you have a hard disk and *lots* of memory (read 1-2 MB).

I know... you say 'Hey, but I just blew ~$2000 on my system already and now I
gotta purchase a ~$300 compiler and a hard drive+memory combo? [~$1500 more]'
Well, its not really necessary if you don't mind walking back and FORTH [pun
intended] through the land of RPN, stacks, and direct-threaded code.

Multi-FORTH costs $79, is interactive, is FAST, and is EXTENSIBLE.  That means
you create little tools to help yourself and build on these tools.  You never
reinvent the wheel with this approach.  You don't have to spend alot of time
(and 3 pages of code, *many* possibilities for error) initializing all those
darn structs to feed intuition.  MF has many built-in tools that will do much
of the grunt work for you while you are developing code, and you can pare down
any unnecessary cruft when you 'turnkey' your code.

In FORTH, you take the base of the language (kind of like what C provides as
operators, keywords, etc.) and instead of writing procedures, you write 'words'.
The trick is that the new words are no different from the base of the language!
Your new words are indistinguishable from the supplied language 'base'.  This
allows you to build your own custom programming environment!  If you are more
interested in the specific Amiga-features of MF, drop me a line via e-mail if
you can't wait for the review or watch this space.  I have to do a little more
serious tinkering before I can post a review.

I have not looked at Amiga Pascal, but I don't like pascal very much anyway.
It tends to be very verbose when compared to a language like C [which is verbose
when compared to FORTH!].  I have looked at Amiga Lisp, which could have been
something if they put in support for the Amiga libraries.  As it is the thing
is only a Lisp interpreter, there are no hooks to all the great things that
make an Amiga great!.  That's really too bad, because if you had those hooks
you could do something neat re: AI.  [Please, someone correct me if I'm wrong.]
					Rich Thomson
USENET: ?				ARPA: thomson@loue.udel.edu