Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!yale!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!willett!dwp
From: dwp@willett.UUCP (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Why don't people use Forth (was Re: FIG Membership cost)
Message-ID: <232.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 9 Jan 90 20:25:03 GMT
References: <756@noe.UUCP> <95.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP> <3084@plains.UUCP>
Organization: Latest Link in ForthNet Chain (Pittsburgh, PA)
Lines: 21

In article <756@noe.UUCP>, Marc de Groot writes:
>Another way in which one's thinking about programming needs to change:
>the reserved word set in other languages fixed, and is easily committed
>to memory.  One needs to develop different memory skills to remember word
>names when those names are used the way the reserved word set is used in 
>other languages.
This is probably the hardest thing I've run across while trying to learn
Forth.  The vocabulary is very explosive.  My best attempt at managing the
mess is similiar to what I use when learning a new assembly language.  I
read the reference manual to get a feel for what kinds of things can be done.
Then I jump in to write code, refering back to the manual to find out
specifics such as how to spell the instruction that does <x> and what the
order of its arguments is.  In that sense, Forth is like a very cisc-y
machine language.  I'd be interested to know what techniques other people
use to approach this difficulty.  Post or mail, I'll summarize mail.

		-Doug

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