Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!ames!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!juniper!olorin
From: olorin@juniper.uucp (David Weinstein)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Infix operators
Keywords: Parallel, controllers
Message-ID: <4158@juniper.uucp>
Date: 30 Aug 88 23:43:44 GMT
References: <8808121826.AA23206@jade.berkeley.edu> <1575@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <6882@well.UUCP> <1581@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <4057@juniper.uucp> <472@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU>
Reply-To: olorin@juniper.UUCP (David Weinstein)
Organization: Austin UNIX Users' Group, Austin, TX
Lines: 73

In article <472@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU> gandreas@ub.d.umn.edu.UUCP (Glenn Andreas) writes:
>In article <4057@juniper.uucp> olorin@juniper.UUCP (David Weinstein) writes:
>>
>>NO, it would not. It is possible to write awful code for any language (ever
>>*looked* at the Unix source?). But even the best written C still looks,
>>well, sloppy.
>This is certainly your opinion.  I personally don't really like C, but I have
>seen some "neat" code in C.  But how about languages like Pascal or Modula-2?
>Is it any wonder why many beginning cs courses use Pascal?  It's readable,
>that's why!

Funny...I thought that they taught Pascal because it's a programming straight
jacket... :-)

The "sloppiness" I was referring to is the:

       function (arguments)

format. It is (at least in my opinion), harder to read than well written
Forth (now badly written Forth on the other hand...)

C, the language which I do most of my programming in (I have to pay my rent
:-), is in fact "almost readable". I dislike Pascal because I feel confined
(I *don't* like paternalistic compilers).
>
[Material about why you can't write really high level code in "conventional
languages" deleted]
>For an even better place for this type of factoring, consider Smalltalk.  It
>has an even better "noun verb" format - instead of "noun noun noun verb", it
>is "noun adjective noun verb noun" (anArray at: 5 put: 10) - and this I
>wouldn't consider to be RPN english!

An excellent point. I am very interested in learning Smalltalk, but Forth
is very efficient, powerful, and (in my opinion) easy to understand.
I would be delighted to see Forth taught as an introductory class in CS, 
because it teaches so many wonderful technques (and it teaches about the
underlying hardware in a very easy to undertsand manner).

Forth does not require tremendous resources (although they are nice :-) ),
and it is fairly easy to implement, and expand... As I have said, I don't
know about Smalltalk, so I can't compare the two...

>
>>As to the great infix/postfix/prefix/fix-the-fight controversy:
>>
>>RPN is not hard to learn, and quickly becomes intuitive. As to the assertion
>>that programmers don't learn it, how many are using HP Calculators? How many
>>non-programmers use adding-machines?
>OK, now this is where I draw the line.  I use and HP calculator.  Many of my
>friends use HP calculators.  But, consider how HP calculators are used - you
>sit down, you type the numbers & the operators and you get the result.  What
>you are doing is "writing" code.  You are not reading it.  RPN is easy to
>write.  Yes, it is intuitive to write.  But not to read.  You have to learn
>to do that.  And many times it take a lot of work.
>
>As a disclaimer, I want it noted that I like the basic idea behind forth.
>It is elegent.  And there are some neat things you can do with it.  And it
>is small.  I like forth since I first learned about it in 82? when Byte did
>an issue on it.  I just don't like the syntax WITH REGARDS TO ARITHMETIC
>EXRESSION (I have no problems with the RPN of procedure calls, although
>control statements are a minor hassle - this is something you can get use
>to).

I don't really see the problem. Well factored Forth keeps most of the 
mathematical "noise" at a low level. And, I have really had no problem
mastering reading *well written* RPN (I hate reading badly written RPN, 
however, these are the areas in which comments get real important).

-- 
Dave Weinstein
Internet: olorin@walt.cc.utexas.edu
UUCP: {ames,utah-cs,uunet}!ut-sally!ut-emx!{walt.cc.utexas.edu,juniper}!olorin
GEnie: DHWEINSTEIN