FORTH

[Darrell Norquay]

At 09:48 AM 8/30/96 -0500, tom cloud wrote:

>Don't know if anyone cares, but I was looking through some old postings
>and saw what dave wrote to me (above).  So, here are some musings
>about FORTH.

Aw c'mon, Tom, we all care, it's just a matter of degree...

> -- and there's other reasons I liked it, I think (there's two things that
>    go first as you get older, I just can't remember either of them
>    at the moment).

You know, I'll be damned if I can remember them either...  Have to ask the wife.
FORTH did seem to make sense when I looked into it before.  I have an IBM
FORTH interpreter? compiler? somewhere on my hard disk, mebbe it's time to
dust 'er off.  But, as always, it keeps getting reassigned to a lower
priority interrupt...

>The main reasons I didn't like it:
>
> -- No one made a product (I used a Z-80 product called StackWorks Forth)
>    that really worked like I wanted.  

>From what I've heard of NMI, they've improved the older stuff somewhat.
FORTH is one of those "dead" languages adored by the few and shunned by the
rest.

>  I guess if it ain't the BATF, it's the dreaded Software
>  Police.

God Save The NRA!  BTW, the RCMP up here does have a special unit dedicated
to software piracy, copyright infringement, and apprehension of people who
don't send in their registration cards.  They "unofficially" call themselves
the Software Police...

> -- Secondly (if that's a real word), FORTH code is known as
>    "write-only-code".  You'd better document carefully, because
>    even you won't be able to figure out what you did after the
>    program gets large and some time goes by.  

Doesn't this apply just as well to assembler?

>Oh well, just stirring the cauldron.

Sh*t disturber...



regards
dn
dnorquay at awinc.com