Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!amdahl!rtech!brunjes
From: brunjes@rtech.rtech.com (roy brunjes)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Declining Forth popularity.
Keywords: Forth, changes, extensions, marketing
Message-ID: <4312@rtech.rtech.com>
Date: 15 Dec 89 18:33:43 GMT
References: <1989Dec14.013516.24694@tree.uucp>
Reply-To: brunjes@rtech.UUCP (roy brunjes)
Organization: Ingres Corporation, Alameda CA 94501
Lines: 50

In article <1989Dec14.013516.24694@tree.uucp> stever@tree.uucp (Steve Rudek) writes:
>
>Anyway, I've developed some definite ideas about why Forth has failed to
>catch on except as a "cult" and "hardware hacker's" language.  And I have
>some definite ideas about what might be done to improve its popularity.
>I've shared some of my thoughts with you folks in this and earlier postings.
>I'd like to read more of your ideas, though, before I present more of my
>own.  Here's the challenge:  Suppose your life depended on getting Forth
>established as a (reasonably) popular language.  Further suppose that you
>had considerably programming and MARKETING resources.  What would you do?
>
>{pacbell!sactoh0! OR ucdavis!csusac!}tree!stever

Well, for starters, I'd have standard wordsets developed that ran unchanged
on many different hardware/OS platforms.  So that keyboard input, mouse input
(where appropriate), displaying text, displaying graphics, sound, etc. all
"looked" identical in terms of the Forth you would code to make it happen.
String handling is one area that Forth let's you "roll your own" (there's
that phrase again ...) way of doing things.  Provide one way of doing it
for the guy who doesn't want to roll his own that is full featured enough
that he doesn't have to implement extensions to do basic stuff!

In fact, maybe support a higher level abstraction of a Forth universe
and develop smaller universes on top that provide consistent ways to
do things (consistent across platforms) for those who just want to
do the "usual" things.  For those who really want to do something unique,
there's the full unrestricted Forth "universe" to play in.

For the learner of Forth, this layered approach would mean a learning curve
that seemed more like a few shorter ones, with a language that always had room
to grow into.  It should be possible to write USEFUL programs in a few
days/weeks if the higher level universes were well thought out.

Surely the Forthers of the world could agree on some minimal set of wordsets
to implement?  It's kind of like what I understand the ANSI committee is
trying to do with the language (but I do not follow what they do, so
no one quote me on that).  String handling, graphics, sound, windowing,
floating point ... all of these come to mind as essential wordsets for
general purpose computing in the 90's.  There are arguably many others.

As for marketing ... I am not talented in this area in the least.  I suppose
the real way to get something to catch on is to have successful applications
attributed to the language.  Any independently wealthy Forth sympathisers
willing to fund some development to yield such an application!?

Anyone else care to respond to this interesting question posed by Steve?

Roy

Disclaimer:  My opinions, not my employer's etc.