Path: csiph.com!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Rod Pemberton Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: Make Forth Small Again! Date: Thu, 4 May 2017 05:08:57 -0400 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 37 Message-ID: <20170504050857.0b544553@_> References: <2017Mar21.174630@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <2017Mar22.141045@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <7b338452-89dd-48a7-bfd3-1e7891126371@googlegroups.com> <70ddfa19-c3a1-41df-8915-dbacd728d09d@googlegroups.com> <0a8667ff-9947-42bd-a9e0-6ed24d7aa522@googlegroups.com> <396de0b0-cd99-4bbe-9090-a44839dff2ea@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ZTD62cW/Uw8bymX5ok+0NA.user.gioia.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.forth:58623 On Thu, 04 May 2017 02:52:37 -0500 Andrew Haley wrote: > Cecil Bayona wrote: > > Contrary to the belief expressed here on this list a good part of a > > standard is to eliminate ambiguity, but not in Forth where ambiguity > > is a welcomed feature, no wonder Forth is looked down upon by most > > programmers that know anything about it. But can one expect when > > marketing people are in charge of the process. > > What does this word salad mean? > He said that the purpose of a language standard is to eliminate ambiguity, i.e., to define things. Except, marketers were involved in the Forth standard. So, the process was corrupted and this failed to happen, i.e., not much was defined resulting in ambiguity. Also, Forthers prefer Forth because of it's ambiguity. This is what some would call cryptic, write once, lacking syntax, etc. Therefore, the Forth standard has extra ambiguity over and above that of any other programming standard in existence. It's this excessive abundance of ambiguity which drives people away from Forth. I.e., the Forth standard is completely nuts, and the language drives people insane. E.g., Forther - see "insane nutjob." Now, you've got to admit that's a somewhat funny moniker as it fits in nicely with the newly suggested squirrel mascot for Forth. Squirrels - given their love of tree nuts - are a bunch of "nutjobs." Rod Pemberton -- "Well, many people are really f---ing stupid too. Should we just adopt all their standards?" - George Carlin