Re: Why forth is not popular

"The Beez'" <hansoft@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote Re: Why forth is not popular

> Ok, I'll try to answer all of those at once.
> 1) "Get one that is documented" or "Get a commercial forth" or "Tough
> luck" (sic!) is not very helpful. First, there are very few free ones
> that are IMHO decently documented.

a) Let's see, gForth and bigForth are free and well documented. FPC is well
documented, especially if you can read German. CHForth and all other Forths
distributed by the Dutch FIG have truly excellent documentation and tutorials.

b) You don't dispute that commercial Forths are well documented.

To take care of your other bothers: don't start with an undocumented free
package as your first introduction to Forth. Doesn't take a rocket scientist
to come up with.

> Second, not everyone forks out a lot
> of money to learn or use a language.

You call around $100 a lot of money? You've spent more on the books
in your time.

> 2) Yes, there was a "standard". Most Forths were following it. That is
> my I bought Forth books for $150 to see the "Starting Forth" standard
> <> "Abersoft Forth" <> "Atari Forth" <> "Artic Forth". I came to know
> Forth by disassembling the beast. Most users had given up by then.
> Artic Forth wasn't that bad when you got to know it, BTW..

Is this relevant to the present situation? Clearly not.

> 3) I wrote "And so Forth". Since it has been used by many compilers I
> guess the Forth world needed it.

Many? A websearch shows it's integrated in bigForth's documentation, which
amazed me a lot, and of course it comes with 4th. I guess other Forths
w/could mention it somewhere in their own documentation.

I'm sorry, but who needs 'And so Forth' if they can get the two Brodie
classics for free :-)

> Stephen Pelc's book is quite good BTW,
> may be not so for absolute beginners, but I've seen far worse. A
> tutorial is far more than explaining that "3 4 + ." prints 7.

Indeed, most Forth tutorials go a lot further.

> 4/5) We still stress too much that it is so nice that "Forth is
> interactive" and "You can test a word at the time" and "If you made an
> error, you execute your marker, make changes to your definition and run
> it again". Most people don't work that way anymore. Even most people
> here responded they write a file, test it, exit the compiler, make
> changes to their code and run the beast again. There is not much
> difference of how we work and how ordinary IDE's work!

Well, with 4th there's probably no other way to do it.

With all Forths that I know, I set a marker, include a file, and
interactively test it by typing parameters and executing definitions.
If something is wrong, I DUMP and SEE, do frequent .S and inspect the stacks.
Sometimes I retype a word definition at the prompt, adding test statements
ad hoc.

If that all works well, I add a test suite to the file and re-include
it. The marker ( ANEW -name ) takes care that the system is cleaned up
before the code is compiled again.

The procedure sometimes fails when I have to call OS or DLL functions.
In that cases I execute iForth from inside a bootstrap C - program, and
step through the interface with the C debugger. I frequently end up using
the Forth assembler/disassembler to debug the C bootstrap :-)

A conventional IDE would be very awkward for my Forth programming style.

> Note that most programmers (at least the old ones) remember Forth from
> their Spectrums, C64, etc. They remember the horrors of block files,
> black screens and reloads. I guess it comes to stressing new users that
> Forth isn't Forth-of-the-eighties anymore. Most people I know still
> regard it that way.

Funny, I never met those people. The ones I bothered to tell about
Forth were quite open to everything, because they saw that I could
produce the kind of results they wanted.

> BTW, I so seldom use a debugger that I haven't installed gdb on my 2
> year old PC yet. In my time there were no interactive debuggers, only
> printf().

I guess you toggled it in with front panel switches, didn't you?
(I had to do this when I was at the university).

> 6) Executables are still better regarded than scripts. It is considered
> much fancier, especially by Windows people. I must admit that Perl has
> had its way, but Perl doesn't claim to be a compiler. Most people would
> consider Forth to be more of an interpreter than a compiler. I've even
> seen someone who taught a certain free Forth was crippleware since it
> couldn't produce a compilant.

Executables are the way of the past. I like the idea of having the source
and nothing but the source. Should give big corporations a cosy and secure
feeling too.

> 7) Me and old-fashioned Forth.. Well, the most popular Forth on
> Freshmeat is still RetroForth.

Indeed it is, finally a good point. I have no idea why this is so. Maybe
because they have a screenshot, and maybe because people tend to look at
the popular ones only (self-fulfilling prophecy?).

> Well, what's in a name.. Need I say
> more.. If we all feel that way, where is the "10 Forth myths" internet
> site? I will tell you that this is still how many people feel about
> Forth.

> 9) If someone insists I'll see if I get all my bookmarks straight, for
> now I don't feel like pointing fingers. Just browse around the net and
> read the many Forth-promotion pages.

There are, IMHO, some horrible ones.

> Hey man, we are SO l33t! "Even retards write great Forth programs" <>
> "Forth is an amplifier". That doesn't add up. Get's get the story
> straight. Forth is for everyone.

I really don't think it is for everybody. Besides, nowadays almost nobody
programs anymore.

-marcel

.

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