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Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words

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Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> writes:
>Anton Ertl wrote:
>
>> Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> writes:
>>>Anton Ertl wrote:
>>>
>>>> This year I use Forth in the first part of our introductory
>>>> programming course beginners.  You can find the course notes (in
>>>> German) on
>>>> 
>>>> <http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/lvas/pk/>
>>>
>>>Nice.  Two comments: Your students probably don't use a Nokia 3210, but a
>>>smartphone, and can get Gforth from the Play Store.
>> 
>> There have been several questions about where to get it for MacOS X,
>> and I could not answer that.
>
>I could build a binary distribution, where unpacking and "make install" is 
>sufficient.

Yes, please.

>> If we had 5 years until our performance diminishes, people would be
>> chess grandmasters after maybe 3 years.  If we had 500, maybe after
>> 300; but maybe then the development speed of the field would set the
>> upper limit of the time for expertise; or maybe the field would
>> develop slower, because there would be less turnover of experts.
>
>One of the comparisons made was "composers", and it took Mozart and 
>Beethoven about as long to become good as the others, who started later.  
>And the other are these chess masters, where most of them start at the age 
>of 5.  For sure they aren't "old" when they achieve master level at 15.

No.  But their rate of improvement has slowed down so much after the
ten years that the improvement from then until the performance starts
to degrade is small.  Of course, if the performance degraded only
after 500 years, the improvement in that time would still be
significant, and that's why we would not consider them masters after
10 years.

Hmm, for chess we might check my theory of a gradual slowdown in
improvement over time by graphing Elo ratings over time for various
grand masters.

>Gerald claimed that it takes a lot longer to reach "master level" in Forth 
>than in other languages.  With those, it takes some weeks, and then you 
>"know it all", and there's little further progress.  You may learn more 
>APIs, but the way you use the language will not significantly change.  I 
>think this property is a result of the large demand for programming 
>languages which can be learned in three days.
>
>The "master" level is usually not defined by an arbitrary time, but by an 
>achievement of understanding, and it's the third level.  The first level is 
>that you can follow the instructions of a master, the second level is that 
>you can do independent work using what you have learned from your masters, 
>and the third level is that you can improve yourself beyond of what you have 
>been taught.  A grandmaster then is somebody who has a large unique 
>skillset, invented by himself.

So your claim (or your take on Gerald's claim) is that in, say, Java,
you only reach the second level, while in Forth you need to reach the
third level until you are considered to have learned the language?  I
have my doubts.  I think mastery in programming includes knowing
several programming languages.  Also, Java is a complex beast (not as
bad as C++, but still), and it's API, too.  They are not made to be
learned in three days, and a few weeks are not sufficient for a
beginner, either. 

Also, I heard about a professional programmer who AFAIK does not do
anything fancy that he considers that he takes on the order of years
(don't remember the exact time) to become fully productive with a
toolset (IDE, compiler etc.).

- 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 2013: http://www.euroforth.org/ef13/

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+DO and programming without stack manipulation words anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-03-18 13:41 +0000
  Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-03-18 17:30 +0100
    Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-03-18 16:50 +0000
      Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-03-18 18:56 +0100
        Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-03-18 18:25 +0000
          Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-03-18 22:21 +0100
            Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-03-19 11:42 +0000
              Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-03-19 14:59 +0100
                Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-03-20 02:13 -0500
                Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-03-20 12:50 +0000
            Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Alexander Skobelev <al.skobelev@gmail.com> - 2014-03-19 20:47 -0700
            Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Alexander Skobelev <al.skobelev@gmail.com> - 2014-03-19 21:24 -0700
            Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Alexander Skobelev <al.skobelev@gmail.com> - 2014-03-19 23:35 -0700
          Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2014-03-20 01:27 -0700
        Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-03-18 12:24 -0700
    Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-03-18 19:23 +0000
    Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Assad Ebrahim <assad.ebrahim@alum.swarthmore.edu> - 2014-03-19 18:36 +0000
      Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Spam@ControlQ.com - 2014-03-19 17:32 -0400
        Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-03-19 23:48 +0100
      Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-03-19 23:17 +0100
        Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Assad Ebrahim <assad.ebrahim@alum.swarthmore.edu> - 2014-03-20 01:47 +0000
          Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-03-20 23:00 +0100
      Re: +DO and programming without stack manipulation words albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-03-20 13:00 +0000

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