Re: Are Computer able to think?

Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Date	2013-07-17 04:21 -0700
References	(4 earlier) <97d7d1ca-626c-4770-b242-da0ec3ddab50@googlegroups.com> <krv0i6$i3r$1@speranza.aioe.org> <7xppuk25y4.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <0ae4b5ff-5db8-4a84-b5f7-3258461ef9f8@googlegroups.com> <30bf0226-87ac-43c1-b12f-779e1d72142c@googlegroups.com>
Message-ID	<38938bbf-aee2-46bf-8361-d2c49e5f6f66@googlegroups.com> (permalink)
Subject	Re: Are Computer able to think?
From	visualforth@rocketmail.com

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On Monday, July 15, 2013 12:51:59 AM UTC-4, hughag...@yahoo.com wrote:
> I've said many times that trying to make Forth all things to all people, is a bad idea ---

Sorry, took me a while to find the right answer.

To make Forth useful for all my programming tasks is not a bad idea - it is the original idea which Chuck Moore had when inventing Forth.
I have the feeling you have forgotten the origins of Forth.

Of course, there are other programming languages, too.

But consider this:
Why shall I use another programming language as long as Forth does the job for me? There is no reason for me to follow your advice and let Forth go to take an awkward programming language instead, which I never used, to start with a new and steep learning curve, only to please your attitude that Forth shouldn't be used for my task? That's awkward. I prefer to stick with Forth. Makes my life much easier. I know I can trust Forth and solutions work when using Forth.
No dead end as there is when using other programming languages.

The makers of C went another way. They have chosen to develop a new programming language for each special task, not considering, that there are people who have a hard time to learn a programming language. But they did give some help by writing a book.

There was a time when Brian Kernighan worked at Bell Labs. He wrote "A Tutorial Introduction to the Language B"; together with Al Aho and Peter J. Weinberger he wrote the book "The AWK Programming Language", he was co-developer of AMPL (a solver, both open source and commercial, including CBC, CPLEX, FortMP, Gurobi, MINOS, IPOPT, SNOPT and KNITRO - the equivalent to the Forth Scientific Library), he was co-author of "THE C PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE", he wrote "The Unix Programming Environment", he invented the Pic programming language, the eqn preprocessor that formats equations for printing, he made troff device independent, and he wrote, again together with Dennis Ritchie, m4, a general purpose macro processor. And even if he wrote "Software Tools in Pascal", he also wrote "Why Pascal is Not My Favorite Programming Language"

As you can see, Brian Kernighan's attitude on programming languages is totally contrary to Chuck Moore's procedure. There is no reason to follow Brian Kernighan's attitude, and for me the only way is using Forth for all my programming endeavors. It's the most effective way for me, because I know how to use Forth. I do not need AWK to perform data filtering and manipulation tasks - I write a few Forth words to achieve this, knowing that it works.

There are two very different, contrary kinds of geniuses at work:
Chuck Moore, who designed a programming language for himself,
and Brian Kernighan, who designed a bunch of programming languages, being a "Jack of all trades".

There is one huge difference which may be important to understand the difference in main street success:
Brian Kernighan wrote a bunch of books about his work - one ore more books for each of his programming languages. Diversity is part of his success.

It's interesting:
Brian Kernighan knew Forth. He never criticized Forth. He once said "Every language teaches you something, so learning a language is never wasted, especially if it's different in more than just syntactic trivia"
Sources:
http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.126.4437&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/321082/an_inteview_brian_kernighan_co-developer_awk_ampl/?pp=2

May be he envied Forth:
"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. (Brian Kernighan)"
Source:
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/euroforth/ef11/papers/pelc.pdf

I like to close with some quotes:
I believe that good design is magical and not to be lightly tinkered with. The difference between a great design and a lousy one is in the meshing of the thousand details that either fit or don't, and the spirit of the passionate intellect that has tied them together, or tried. That's why programming - or buying software - on the basis of "lists of features" is a doomed and misguided effort. The features can be thrown together, as in a garbage can, or carefully laid together and interwoven in elegant unification, as in APL, or the Forth language, or the game of chess.
- Ted Nelson

Software is too important to be left to programmers.
- Meilir Page-Jones.

Source:
https://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/ee476/Proverbs.html

The problem I find when I’m looking at lines
Of programs all written in C,
Is that the syntax and grammar resemble the stammer
Of a dyslexic demoralized bee.

Source:
http://www.djryan.co.uk/wp/tag/brian-kernighan/

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Are Computer able to think? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-07-12 06:18 -0700
  Re: Are Computer able to think? Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-07-12 07:42 -0700
  Re: Are Computer able to think? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2013-07-12 12:33 -0700
    Re: Are Computer able to think? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2013-07-12 12:46 -0700
      Re: Are Computer able to think? Brad Eckert <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2013-07-12 14:28 -0700
        Re: Are Computer able to think? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2013-07-12 14:50 -0700
          Re: Are Computer able to think? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2013-07-18 11:36 +0000
            Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-18 07:31 -0500
              Re: Are Computer able to think? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-07-18 23:41 +0200
  Re: Are Computer able to think? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-07-13 02:52 +0200
    Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-12 20:06 -0700
      Re: Are Computer able to think? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-07-13 14:34 +0200
        Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-13 19:54 -0700
          Re: Are Computer able to think? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2013-07-14 11:32 +0000
            Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-14 11:46 -0700
          Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-14 21:57 -0700
    Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-12 20:44 -0700
      Re: Are Computer able to think? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-07-13 14:37 +0200
  Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-12 20:08 -0700
  Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-13 01:44 -0500
    Re: Are Computer able to think? Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-13 22:25 +0200
  Re: Are Computer able to think? "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnotq.cpm> - 2013-07-13 06:15 -0400
    Re: Are Computer able to think? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-07-13 11:31 -0700
      Re: Are Computer able to think? "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnotq.cpm> - 2013-07-13 19:31 -0400
        Re: Are Computer able to think? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-07-13 18:17 -0700
          Re: Are Computer able to think? "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnotq.cpm> - 2013-07-14 16:11 -0400
            Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-14 14:21 -0700
              Re: Are Computer able to think? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-07-14 15:03 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-14 21:51 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-07-15 00:09 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-15 02:39 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-07-17 04:21 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2013-07-17 07:31 -1000
                Re: Are Computer able to think? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-07-17 12:06 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-17 23:53 -0700
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                Re: Are Computer able to think? visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2013-07-19 00:48 -0700
              Re: Are Computer able to think? "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnotq.cpm> - 2013-07-14 18:22 -0400
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-14 15:44 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnotq.cpm> - 2013-07-15 21:00 -0400
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-16 03:43 -0500
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-16 23:24 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? The Beez <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-16 07:24 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-16 23:41 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-16 19:16 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? AKK <akk@nospam.org> - 2013-07-17 08:04 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-16 23:27 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2013-07-16 20:48 -1000
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-17 11:51 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-07-17 04:49 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? The Beez <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-18 07:15 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-18 11:59 -0500
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-18 21:56 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-07-18 23:45 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2013-07-18 15:16 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-18 17:40 -0500
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-07-19 01:08 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-19 02:48 -0500
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-07-19 01:18 -0700
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                Re: Are Computer able to think? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2013-07-22 09:50 +0000
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-18 17:32 -0500
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-19 19:28 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-19 10:51 -0700
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                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-19 23:08 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-20 05:49 -0500
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2013-07-20 06:21 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Brad Eckert <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2013-07-20 14:02 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-20 17:02 -0700
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                Re: Are Computer able to think? Jason Damisch <jasondamisch@yahoo.com> - 2013-07-21 10:07 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Hannu Vuolasaho <hannu.vuolasaho@nospam.tut.fi.invalid> - 2013-07-21 19:23 +0000
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2013-07-20 10:07 +0200
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                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-17 10:46 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-18 00:40 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-17 21:34 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-17 23:55 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-18 13:03 -0500
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-18 22:00 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? The Beez <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-18 07:21 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-18 11:02 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2013-07-18 22:02 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2013-07-18 21:43 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2013-07-17 03:29 -0500
              Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-14 21:44 -0700
                Re: Are Computer able to think? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2013-07-15 16:45 +0200
                Re: Are Computer able to think? hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2013-07-15 20:32 -0700
  Re: Are Computer able to think? mentifex@myuw.net - 2013-07-14 11:52 -0700
  Re: Are Computer able to think? Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2013-07-17 05:24 -0700
  Re: Are Computer able to think? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2013-07-18 11:15 +0000
    Re: Are Computer able to think? Brad Eckert <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2013-07-18 11:33 -0700
  Re: Are Computer able to think? jim@rainbarrel.com - 2013-07-24 20:09 -0700
    Re: Are Computer able to think? m.a.m.hendrix@tue.nl - 2013-07-25 00:15 -0700
    Re: Are Computer able to think? Brad Eckert <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2013-07-25 08:38 -0700

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