Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!nrl-cmf!cmcl2!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!tness1!uhnix1!nuchat!sugar!ficc!karl
From: karl@ficc.uu.net (karl lehenbauer#)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: type checking
Summary: a million lines of code does not a good forth application make
Message-ID: <1457@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 12 Sep 88 15:17:00 GMT
References: <8808121826.AA23206@jade.berkeley.edu> <1575@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <7071@well.UUCP>
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 58

In article <7071@well.UUCP>, jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr) writes:
> 	Well, some people who *call* themselves computer scientists talk
> 	trash like that ... but rarely someone from the *control industry*
> 	which your mail addr seems to peg you as, friend!
> 
> 	Do you mean to tell me that in 1988 you are doing control applications
> 	and are not using Forth?

Neither does the Forth language nor any Forth environment to my knowledge
adequately support the development of millions of lines of code by hundreds 
of programmers, which is the scale of the activities at this mail address.

I asserted that Forth was a good environment but not so good of a language.
You Forth fanatics are all in love with the environment, so you're willing
to overlook the problems with the language, such as the lack of data types,
inability to determine if words have their parameters set up properly
(again, no types and no ability to specify number of arguments passed to
or received by a word) and lack of an infix notation (important, I think, to
broaden the popularity of the language).  Disk I/O could be improved 
(standardized and add some sort of standard or quasi-standard file support)  
There needs to be some sort of stdio-type thing.  String processing
is pretty abysmal.  Floating point standards are nonexistent.  Most Forth
environments are not well integrated with the native operating system, when
Forth is not used as the native operating system.  In most cases, it is
hard or impossible to execute a Forth program from a command line as a simple
application, as one does all the time with C, assembly or whatever programs.
There is no widespread ability to call Forth from other languages or to call
code written in other languages from Forth.  One might say, "yeah, but why
would I want to do this?"  Consider it a good neighbor policy.  Those other
languages are able to interact, I can call C from LISP, why not Forth?
And as for realtime, most Forth environments are not realtime, because they 
use a polyForth-style polled task switcher rather than a preemptive exec.  

Believe me, I understand the appeal of Forth for programming.
I used Forth to do a dual-processor, multitasking control system and it
was wonderful to be able to type the words into the console and scan the points,
switch the relays and such.  Indeed, the ability to quickly turn around a 
change or a test, one the order of a minute instead of several hours once it 
was in the field certainly saved my butt.  Nonetheless, it should be possible
to improve the language while maintaining the thing everyone likes:  the
environment.

There are those who will continue to argue that no data types, postfix notation
and such make the language better.  People and companies vote with their 
time and money, however.  Their resources remain solidly behind the 
C/FORTRAN conventional language axis.  Forth remains a curious, tho' 
interesting and capable, footnote, and will continue to be one at least 
until it appears viable to the mainstream of the computer community.  Are 
they just a bunch of old retreads who wouldn't know a fish if we hit them 
in the face with one?  Possibly. :-) But we shouldn't dismiss their 
indifference as being entirely due to their ignorance: We too may be 
considered to have failed for not having adequately communicated to them 
the language's capabilities and utility, or for the arrogance of not having
taken seriously their suggestions, criticisms and complaints.  Taking the 
attitude that anyone who disagrees is a fool or a bloody fish-face only helps 
to perpetuate Forth's outcast status.
-- 
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-- Ferranti International Controls, 12808 W. Airport Blvd., Sugar Land, TX 77478