Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!uwvax!umn-d-ub!gandreas
From: gandreas@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU (Glenn Andreas)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: FORTH or SmallTalk
Keywords: SmallTalk infix
Message-ID: <484@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU>
Date: 8 Sep 88 16:54:08 GMT
Organization: U. of Minnesota-Duluth, Computer Center
Lines: 31

(Note: Not crossposted to comp.lang.smalltalk because they already know this)

Just to add some more from a point of view that agrees with Fraser in many
respects (but not all), if you want a language that does everything you
want, and then quite a few, check out SmallTalk.  It is completely infix,
there is a very nice debugger, and you are in an extremely interactive
invironment (you can fix and recompile a procedure that has an error in it
and keep executing the program).  The only problem is that this uses a lot
of resources.

Forth, on the other hand, needs very few resources (none, compared to
SmallTalk).  But what if you have lots of resources - hard disk, megs of
memory, powerful cpu's.  Should I use the same programming system on my Mac
as on my Apple II?  What's wrong with expanding Forth to include some of the
things that you want in a programming environment (such as a
pre-processor).  And hey, maybe some other people will think this is neat
and want it too.


Oh, one more thing that Forth can do beside return multiple arguments from a
function is to return a variable number of arguments (such as ?DUP).  There
are lots of neat ideas in Forth, and there is nothing wrong with trying to
find others, even if they may seem to be bad ideas.

Remember, I like the idea behind Forth, but still have problems liking
postfix expression in some contexts.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
= "When I was young, all I wanted was to be  | - gandreas@ub.d.umn.edu -    =
=  ruler of the universe.  Now that isn't    |   Glenn Andreas              =
=  enough" - Alex P. Keaton                  |                              =
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=