Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.lang.forth > #14391

Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language?

Show all headers | View raw

On Wednesday, July 25, 2012 1:22:11 AM UTC-7, Mark Wills wrote:
> On Jul 25, 7:00 am, Hugh Aguilar <hughaguila...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 24, 8:01 pm, "Clyde W. Phillips Jr." <cwpj...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > A poll of most programmers in the world would include the ones that have written their own FORTHs, and the rest who know how to look past a namng convention, not to mention the open source projects. What a crock.
> >
> > I don't know what you are talking about in regard to a naming
> > convention or open-source projects.
> >
> > It is true that a lot of programmers have written their own Forth.
> > Another thing that I have noticed is that when I say that I have
> > programmed Forth professionally (such as during a job interview for a
> > C programming job), somebody will invariably announce that he is a
> > "real Forth expert," meaning that he wrote a Forth of his own. He
> > always expects me to be awed by the fact that he is a Forth compiler-
> > writer whereas I am a mere Forth application programmer. In the old
> > days, these were typically ITC implementations loosely based on
> > PolyForth except with the 64K limit problem solved (either by putting
> > code and data in their own 64K segments or by using ES as the Forth IP
> > and starting every word on a paragraph boundary). In more modern
> > times, these are typically C implementations with a gigantic SWITCH
> > statement (what Rod Pemberton is doing). The programmer declares
> > himself to be a "real Forth expert" and in the next breath will
> > declare that Forth is a mildly amusing educational exercise but that
> > it has no practical value. Whether it is an ITC-based PolyForthesque
> > implementation or a C-based Gforthesque implementation, the execution
> > speed is too slow for it to be used professionally (by about an order
> > of magnitude). Of course, Python is also slow as molasses, but at
> > least Python has powerful features and extensive libraries, which
> > neither SwiftForth nor Gforth have.
> >
> > Forth Inc. not only ruined Forth's credibility with their 64K-limited
> > PolyForth, but they also ruined Forth's credibility with their
> > horribly-slow ITC implementation. This is why, during 16-bit MS-DOS
> > days when Turbo C dominated, almost everybody who knew about Forth
> > described Forth as an interpreted language. People would routinely
> > state that because PolyForth uses ITC, Forth doesn't deserve to be
> > described as a "compiler" but should instead be described as an
> > "interpreter" --- that PolyForth was in the same category as QBasic,
> > but should not be compared to the C compilers at all.
> 
> Well, getting back to the original topic, I stand by my original
> assertion. The secret to a successful progamming language is simply:
> 
> * Users
> * Inertia
> 
> And of course, you don't get the intertia without the users.
> 
> There's one other secret ingredient: The languge you learned at
> university.
> 
> AT&T pulled of a very clever manoeuvre when they licenced Unix to the
> universities for next to nothing. Obviously, I don't know if it was a
> deliberate move, but the side effect was to breed generation after
> generation of C programmers. That obviously 'bubbled up' to the
> workplace as those students graduated. They took their programming
> languge skills with them in exactly the same way as they took their
> spoken language skills with them. In other words, it was completely
> natural.
> 
> Back in the early 2000's, working as a Principal Software Engineer for
> a SCADA company, we suddenly saw a 'paradigm shift' (I think that
> phrase is somewhat over-used, but is applicable in this case): Our new
> graduates didn't want to use C, or C++. Why? Because they probably
> only spent a couple of days studying the language at college/uni. C
> was out. Java was in. The King is dead. Long live the King. They
> didn't want to do 'low-level' close-to-the-metal programming. They
> wanted to do OOP, because it was sexy, and it was what they knew.
> Showing a 25 year old graduate how pointers work in C is not fun.
> It was quite a battle getting them to settle down and see the wood for
> the trees. But it really was night and day. British Uni's dumped C in
> around 2001 and switched to Java.
> 
> I attribute that directly to the success of Java, just as with C.
> 
> So, you need:
> 
> * Promotion via university education, which gives you:
> * Users, which gives you:
> * Inertia
> 
> Once it's got the intertia, it's quite un-stoppable.
> 
> What it has *absolutely nothing* to do with is:
> 
> * The quality of the language!
> 
> YMMV :-)

lol
yeaheha!!
u tell em!!

also helps to have successful apps!!

unix being in c was quite a help to c

I agree

wow im rhyming

what glee

Back to comp.lang.forth | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar

Thread

The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bluebee <visualforth@rocketmail.com> - 2012-07-17 17:57 -0700
  Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-18 01:30 -0700
    Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-18 15:19 +0200
      Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-18 08:24 -0700
      Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2012-07-18 16:25 -0700
        Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2012-07-19 08:35 +0300
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hannu Vuolasaho <hannu.vuolasaho@nospam.tut.fi.invalid> - 2012-07-19 06:31 +0000
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visploveslisp@gmail.com - 2012-07-25 16:49 -0700
        Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-19 01:55 -0700
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-07-19 09:09 -1000
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-19 19:36 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Spam@ControlQ.com - 2012-07-20 12:22 -0400
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? kenney@cix.compulink.co.uk - 2012-07-20 12:08 -0500
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-19 18:49 -0700
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-20 00:39 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-24 00:21 -0700
        Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Albert van der Horst <albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl> - 2012-07-19 11:20 +0000
        Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? "Clyde W. Phillips Jr." <cwpjr02@gmail.com> - 2012-07-24 20:01 -0700
          Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-24 23:00 -0700
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-25 01:22 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-25 01:51 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-07-25 07:18 -1000
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? vandys@vsta.org - 2012-07-25 18:07 +0000
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Spam@ControlQ.com - 2012-07-25 16:53 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-07-26 01:46 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-26 22:48 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-27 23:44 +0200
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-27 15:25 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-28 00:44 +0200
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Marc Olschok <nobody@nowhere.invalid> - 2012-07-28 18:15 +0000
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-07-28 13:35 -0500
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-07-28 21:59 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Spam@ControlQ.com - 2012-07-30 11:53 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-30 20:38 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-25 23:25 +0200
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visploveslisp@gmail.com - 2012-07-25 16:52 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-25 17:00 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visploveslisp@gmail.com - 2012-07-25 17:01 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2012-07-25 17:10 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-25 22:44 -0700
              Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-07-26 05:24 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-07-26 05:26 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-26 22:26 -0700
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-07-27 13:52 -0400
                Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-27 15:52 -0700
            Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-07-25 01:30 -0700
    Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bluebee <visualforth@rocketmail.com> - 2012-07-21 16:17 -0700
  Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-07-18 15:13 +0200
    Re: The Secret of a Successful Programming Language? visploveslisp@gmail.com - 2012-07-28 21:56 -0700

csiph-web