Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!glasgow!orr
From: orr@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Fraser Orr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: FORTH and memory
Message-ID: <1558@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Date: 2 Aug 88 12:19:35 GMT
References: <ZMLEB@SCFVM> <8807211846.AA27919@jade.berkeley.edu> <9428@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <2353@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1530@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <132@kolvi.hut.fi>
Reply-To: orr%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nss.ucl.ac.uk (Fraser Orr)
Organization: Comp Sci, Glasgow Univ, Scotland
Lines: 25

In article <132@kolvi.hut.fi> mea@kolvi.UUCP (Matti Aarnio) writes:
>
>  I believe you haven't heard about single-chip processors and their
>limitations concerning amount of memories available.

I agree, in some very limited applications languages like forth are
most appripriate. That is not to say though that they are right for 
all (or even a lot of) applications.

[Anecdote about assembler crazed programmer deleted]
>
> Shell-Metzner (sp?) (aka Shell) -sort isn't too complex.
>Once I coded Shell to replace bubble in one assemblers symbol table output
>routines -- using assembler.  That may be bad with IBM/370, but 6502 was nice.

Sorry but you completely missed the point. Shell might be as easy to code
as bubble ( it isn't and it also isn't n.log(n)), what I was saying is that
coding in a high level language does not of necessity, produce less efficient
programs. The purpose of an HLL is to allow the programmer to concentrate
on the PROBLEM and not the PROGRAM. The sign of a good programmer is one
that writes algorithims, not code.

==Fraser Orr ( Dept C.S., Univ. Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK)
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