Re: Forth and Co - The Return of the Jedi

Jerry Avins wrote:
John Doty wrote:

...

Forth is a methodology. The pursuit of simplicity is a critical part of that methodology. If you don't follow that methodology, you are no longer on the Forth path.

That's so strong as to be worthy of a troll.

It's not a troll. It's exasperation at the meme "Standard Forth" that is a parasite upon the Forth idea. That a few people prosper by harvesting the fruit of the parasite does not make it the real thing, nor does it mean that "Forth" is healthy.

Don't you care whether Forth prospers? Or is the hermit programmer model OK with you? Forth used to be an important tool in my world, but it's essentially extinct and nothing has really emerged as a satisfactory replacement. Should I not be frustrated with this?

Is a simplicity truly an important part of Forth, or is it merely an ideological claim demanding carefully cultivated blindness to the fact that most Forths are unnecessarily complicated?

Were not smog-ridden Lonfon and Los Angeles not real cities, despite modern efforts to have cleaner air?

Fortran code from the 1960's, before Forth existed, still runs. Maybe you should consider Fortran for your next high reliability project. ;-)

Nah. I never liked punch cards.

Vacuum tubes have much more consistent parameters than transistors. Were vacuum tube computers more reliable than transistor computers?

One of their consistencies was short life.

So, your statement that "Being predictable is a large part of being reliable" is hardly universal.

"A large part" is hardly "IFF". You seem to be debating to score points, rather than to clarify.

No, I'm just pointing out that you can't make such a generalization. Reliability stems from matching ends with means, not from some property of the means divorced from the ends.

--
John Doty, Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
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Specialization is for robots.
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