Re: How to make Forth interesting?

On Apr 2, 2:00 pm, Jonah Thomas <jethom...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
No, I'm trying to get a sense of what you advise.

I no longer have that sense at all. You appear to only by
trying to deny that I wrote and distributed lots of software
used by other people and deny that I did it so people could
use it and learn because you are now just trying to be
insulting. You know you are lying.

It is more fun for you take "identify the problem and select
the appropriate tool" and quote it as "all problems are the
same so use only Forth for everything for insane reasons".
You are just trying to be as insulting as possible and I don't
think you really want to continue that tack for long.

"Thankfully Forth is a thousand times simpler when you have Forth
that isn't 99% about C systems."

Well my favorite subjects in Forth are parallelism, Forth OS,
Forth GUI, and the work on simple low power high performance
processors. I think GUI is a good example. Chuck has always used
a different approach than I on it.

I have used the big OS GUI and written for the interface. I have
tried
to avoid that complexity by using a standard Forth that puts a layer
of
glue in between so that you can use Forth syntax out of the box and
reduce the number of low level interface details that you have to deal
with. But they can over mask over the real complexity in all those
tens of megabytes of code too much. You still have to occasionally
wade though hundreds or thousdands of different functions and tens
of thousands of variables to figure how how to use the GUI interface
when the system is mostly this very complex collection of code with
an incredible number of non-obvious side effects.

At iTV I did the GUI for the OS. To do that I had to do it three
times. Once in Windows for the original high level simulator that
let applications developers use the high level GUI interface that
would eventually exist in the OS right from their ANS Forth and
debug their windowing code for the target application a couple of
days after the project started. Humm, Windows Forth
programming, by me.

Then I wrote the low level simulator in Windows that simulated
every bit in memory and machine cycle and allowed developers to
develop binary images for the targer before it was built and
test them right down to every bit from the modem to the keyboard
to the flash files etc. to create flash images for the target
that was not available yet. And you could run the flash images
on your PC because it used its keyboard and modem and Windows
windows exactly like the low level hardware target system with
a layer of glue to the Forth Windows interfaces. Hmm, Windows
Forth programing by me.

Then I wrote the OS GUI code for the target. The application
GUI code for the target had been written long ago. I had done
the Windows programming twice on two products. And now I had
to do it without Windows. I had to write the code that was
going to replace Windows in the real target and provide the
OS GUI services for multi-tasking multi-windowed embedded
applications.

I know you have heard the story before and know the punch
line. Because the target code was only 2K writing it was
MUCH easier than writing the glue to any of the popular
Forth GUI interfaces on top of the ANS Forth windows layer
on top of the Microsoft Windows API. It's pretty simple.
Dealing with 2K of Forth is easier than dealing with
tens of megabyte of code and multiple languages, duh.

Other people tell me they did similar things and found
the same thing. It was easier to write OS code yourself
in Forth than to hook to a big C OS. This seems to shock
people with hosted only experience.

When I mention an alternative that is not the same as
saying that the alternative that other people did not
consider is the only alternative that anyone should
every use for any problem that comes up as you want
to claim to be insulting.

From this I made the simple statement that dealing with
2K of Forth code written to match the application needs
is easier than dealing with 20M of external code that
will do it for you even if the megabyte of glue that
someone else has added is there to make the 20M of
code easier to deal with. I say 2K of code is simpler
than 20M of C. You seem to think that the idea
is absurd.

This sets you off. So despite knowing all this and
that I also published other Forth programs so that
other people could use them in hosted environments
it is easier for you to just insult me and create
a straw man claiming that what I say is that I don't
hosted Forth, that no one should. Or you get even
more insulting and write that I was lying and wrote
that people should always just use Forth for
everything regardless of what it is.

You are just trying to be as insulting as possible.
You want to deny that I wrote that code or all
the compilers, simulators, and tutorials in
various Forth over the years. You want to deny
that I know how many thousands of times they have
been downloaded by other people so that you can
tell people that I say don't use any hosted
software, was lying about the hosted software
I wrote, and tell people that they should only
do everything in Forth.

I said from people's hatred of colorforth c.l.f that
Chuck should not expect people to take to it regardless
of the amount of success with it that he reports. So
someone who argued with Chuck insisted that what
most people would need would be a target compiler/
simulator that would use ASCII source files so that
they could use their favorite editor, and run in
their favorite OS so that they could still do all
that other stuff like they always do and that it
should be written in standard Forth so that the
source code would be readable to people who only
know that much about Forth.

So in 2004 I wrote VentureForth and the t18 compiler.
Hmm, ANS Forth, windows hosted, me. Hmm. that seems to
confict with the garbage you keep posting doesn't it.
Facts never get in your way when you are posting lies
about other people do they?

You keep saying I don't use ANS, don't use hosted
Forth, don't recommend it to anyone etc. And
despite being shown the evidence again and again
you keep insisting on lying so that you can be
insulting and claim that I say not do to what I
do.

Can you see how I might think that's what you intended?

No. Your just trying to be an ass.

Please explain the FORML papers, the many public hosted Forth
systems, compilers and simulators, and tutorials that have been
hit millions of times and the programs like Ventureforth! If
what you talk about my not doing ANS Forth or using hosted Forth
and telling people that they should not ever used code hosted
in C systems then how do you explain the existence of my website?

How do you explain the existence of VentureForth? You can't.
These simple well known facts conflict with your absurd claims
that you have logical reasons for posting the vengeful lies
that you keep posting.

That's good for Chuck's chip-design program against the standard tools
of that day. It doesn't say much about Forth.

Well one can see it as a comparison of as equal of teams as
possible given the same assignment. The main difference one
was using only Forth, the other was using only non-Forth.

People who want only to prove Forth's failures almost always
can do little more than show their own code. People who refuse
to acknowledge Forth success stories for other people will
always simply deny the value of anything that shows Forth in
a good light. But that's a different subject and you are
just trying to be insulting at this point.

Great! Any chance that IntellaSys might let somebody look over some
fraction of their data and publish the relevant results? It might be too
big a project for Noah Ryman's master's thesis, but maybe not.

Your free to try to convince the lawyers to publish the records of
what got spent where. If I were them I wouldn't do it for a long
list of reasons that most adults or people involved in business
would well understand.

There are tricks to fooling people into thinking you know what you're
talking about. It might be worth it to Chuck to think about that. For
that matter it might be worth it to me too; I've tended to think it was
immoral and ignore the topic apart from noticing a little bit about how
it works.

Chuck is not trying to fool people. Not a good road to go down. So
he just sticks to reporting facts that can be confirmed when
explaining
what he has accomplished. When he talks about Forth and his methods
to people who want to learn to do Forth better he is willing to
speculate
about things that can't be objectively measured, but that's different
than reporting about how his chips work.

As for your lesson about the newbie street performer it seems
like a story with a lesson for someone starting out, wanting
to follow what they like to do but not knowing how to make
a living with it. I don't think it applies as much to people
who had to deal with that long ago and have been professionals
for a long time and are winding down. If they have loved making
a good living doing what they love then I think it is less
applicable.

Perhaps I get into trouble because most of the Forth people I
know are gray and winding down. Many have made millions just
doing Forth and loved it. I probably tend to talk to people
here as if they understood the stuff those people understand
rather then resenting them for their success with Forth.

These people don't worry about what to say if a student laughs
about how their Perl homework is easier in Perl than in Forth
like you. But their approach to Forth has let Forth be better
for them than it is for some people.

Best Wishes
.

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