Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!willett!dwp
From: dwp@willett.UUCP (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Thoughts on Forth (was: Why don't people use Forth...)
Message-ID: <231.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jan 90 20:24:58 GMT
References: <756@noe.UUCP> <95.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP> <3084@plains.UUCP>
Organization: Latest Link in ForthNet Chain (Pittsburgh, PA)
Lines: 38


[I hardly expect any of these ideas to be new, but I thought I'd toss them
 out for comment.]

>Yup.  Forth requires another way of thinking about programming.  Nothing
>in Forth is cast in stone, which is frightening to programmers who expect
>that.  It takes a *long* time to get used to the fact that you can do
>it yourself; just 'cuz it ain't supplied don't mean you can't have it.
Forth seems to be like a desert.  When first observed, it appears
barren, but constantly shifting.  Closer inspection reveals life, but
on a scale and of a type different from non-desert life.  Forth is powerful
because it does not stand in your way.  It is frustrating to a novice because
it is so slippery; one feels as if one has to re-invent half the world before
taking a single step.

One of the main differences (IMHO) between Forth and Smalltalk is that
Smalltalk comes with a whole bunch of 'library' code ready to use.  You
don't often hear of people redoing or totally abandoning Smalltalk's
library.  Perhaps that is because it is too herculean a task.  Perhaps
it is because the library is really well done and has been done and
redone enough times for the proper factoring to have happened.  Perhaps
the Forth community is too few flung too far to have enough feedback to
get to the level Smalltalk did confined in one company?  Forth
encourages you to take the most direct path towards your problem.  I
have an image of Forth programmers as backpacking trailblazers working
diligently towards their own summits, stopping occasionally to get
replacement supplies and swap stories of Bigfoot and UFO sitings.  I
feel an undertone of contempt for the 'fascist' languages [perhaps this
is part of me, I'm not sure.] "Seven countries in seven days."  If
Forth is declining in the few niches it has, perhaps it is because C's
"bus route" has finally been put in, Ada's steamship now has a port of
call.  If Forth is a frontierman's language, where is the frontier?

		-Doug

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