Path: csiph.com!usenet.pasdenom.info!news.albasani.net!feeder.erje.net!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx04.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: How about helping optimization in language? Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2012 15:59:30 GMT Organization: Institut fuer Computersprachen, Technische Universitaet Wien Lines: 48 Message-ID: <2012Apr8.175930@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> References: <30126800.1344.1332858395156.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@ynnk21> <7xbonasmz9.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <4f7975af.80429872@192.168.0.50> <7x1uo5frcd.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <4f7ac037.165046046@192.168.0.50> <7xbon8y3iy.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <7xhax0j9mo.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <6aec80df-1ec5-42ec-8a09-c07824d09bc6@f6g2000vbc.googlegroups.com> <7xzkamlurv.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> Injection-Info: mx04.eternal-september.org; posting-host="42AvmJhM5u/xQ8v/vurAFA"; logging-data="15459"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+E5DGyFViA6NVgLChAisNo" X-newsreader: xrn 10.00-beta-3 Cancel-Lock: sha1:QM1P8M+i2lgvJGqkD8ofiSFaNjM= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.forth:10996 Paul Rubin writes: >There's another issue, which is from reading people like Chuck Moore and >Jeff Fox, I've got the idea (maybe wrong) that Forth doesn't even >attempt to be great at attacking complex problems head-on, and its >strength is not in that area. Instead it goes for an approach of >helping the programmer find the simple problem hiding behind the >complexity. Chuck Moore is certainly into reducing complexity by redefining the problem. E.g., at the same time when he "discovered" Forth, others defined Algol-68. As one example, while Moore reduced complexity by making the syntax extremely simple, they invented new concepts for defining syntax. > But, we know from the study of logic, that there are some >problems that are just inherently and inescapably complex and for which >nothing but a head-on approach can work. I don't know what you know from the study of logic, but it has nothing at all to do with the way that Moore avoids complexity. The complexity has typically nothing to do with logic; and logicians typically take a highly simplified view of problems to make it fit into their formal frameworks. Still, I can think of an example where logic comes into play a little: We know from formal language theory (say "logic" if you want) that, in general, parsing Chomsky-Type-0 languages is undecidable. So not only Chuck Moore, but everyone else who designed a computer languages, has decided to avoid designing Chomsky Type-0 languages. Nobody took a "head-on approach", because that would have been pointless. >So Forth is highly effective >in a lot of situations, but perhaps not all. I don't think you can draw conclusion from Chuck Moore's approach to complexity on the effectiveness of Forth. Other people (say, CCS) may use Forth effictively for situations which Moore would have avoided. But leave the "so" away, and most people would agree. OTOH, you can then replace "Forth" with everything else (at least everything that's effective in a lot of situations), and most people would agree. - anton -- M. Anton Ertl http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html EuroForth 2011: http://www.euroforth.org/ef11/