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Groups > comp.lang.forth > #15520
| From | Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.forth |
| Subject | Re: Forth as a polarising language |
| References | (8 earlier) <9776b0d9-234a-4fd0-840c-4ddb22e3644b@sd5g2000pbc.googlegroups.com> <96e329b8-92e8-45f8-85dd-87c15bd4e174@googlegroups.com> <3f31baf6-68e9-4be5-8b90-c1b6637171e4@googlegroups.com> <7xk3w58rwq.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> <42098575.CBZ8BYJVEi@sunwukong.fritz.box> |
| Date | 2012-09-07 18:22 -0700 |
| Message-ID | <7xzk5148ba.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com> (permalink) |
| Organization | Nightsong/Fort GNOX |
Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> writes: > server problems; the mobile phone has become a "real" computer, and it > is about a factor 10 slower than your average desktop PC (at least > that's what my Gforth benchmarks suggest...). Current phones are equivalent to fairly powerful workstations or servers from 10 years ago (or less), and this newsgroup had about the same discussions of Forth then that it does now. I don't think they make Android phones with less than 128MB of ram, most have more, some have as much as 2GB. It's perfectly fine to program most phone apps in scripting languages, with the cpu intensive stuff (mostly video codecs) being done by native code in the platform. UI lagginess is a rather separate issue caused by problems like too much abstraction. > But our phones haven't, and the servers in Googles or Facebooks server > farm need to be efficient, too That must be why Facebook's stuff is all in PHP ;-). Google's main search app (last I heard) is in C++, but they use Java and Python for lots of stuff too. I think GMail is written in Java. I've heard that Microsoft Bing (search engine) is written in F# (an OCaml fork) but am not sure of this. > But I wouldn't say that Lisp is on top of the "Blub paradox", it's > just that Lispers have their own set of blind spots, I'd go further and say: Lisp is Blub, the Lispers just don't know it, they look upward at Haskell and see weird features that they don't understand, just like they observe about other languages. Haskell isn't the top either. There is no top. Forth and Lisp are sort of like "limit ordinals", where you take a certain set of ideas and pursue them til they can't go any further, but might not notice that it's possible to keep moving forward by bringing in new ideas. > e.g. resource usage and performance doesn't seem to matter that much. Lispers and Haskellers and (usually) Pythonistas are quite capable of recognizing this issues and making reasoned, quantitative trade-offs. Java and PHP users, maybe not so much ;-) > I'd say that anyone who claims there is a partial order is suffering > from the Blub paradox. It's reasonable to say there's mostly a partial order, with some incommensurate points here and there, and Forth is in some way incommensurate, which is one of the things that makes it interesting. Its benefits are in areas that other languages don't even try. Forth seems to gain leverage by really cleverly examining the division of labor between the compiler and the programmer, but today's programmers are arguably better off shifting all the work to the compiler that they can. It's like the joke about salesman saying "if you buy this gadget, it will do half your work for you" and the customer answering "oh great! I'll take two of them". > We had this discussion here with strong typed languages vs. Forth. For > me, strong typed languages get into my way of programming. With no disrespect intended: as far as I can tell, I don't think you've tried any good ones ;-). Have you even used a dynamically typed, gc'd language like Lisp or Python? .There's a style that evolves rather naturally in them, and departing from the style usually results in a bug. The next step is simply to program the compiler to notice when you've departed from the style. Coq is a different story altogether and it is extremely specialized and difficult to use, from what I can tell. It's of interest mostly as a source of ideas and as a research system that's just beginning to deliver some things that cross over into some limited practicality. > I know that when I use a strong typed language (and even when - like > Factor - it is one which resembles Forth a lot), I'm struggling with > the type system. I haven't used Factor so I'm not sure what the obstacle is. With Haskell, it takes a while to use the type system to your advantage. If of any interest, there are folks who think OCaml is the big secret in terms of bringing those benefits while being more practical and easier to use than Haskell. (Haskell uses more bleeding edge concepts and is therefore more interesting to language nerds even if it's less practical). I know of some projects that switched from Python to OCaml and been happy. > And it's not inexperience - I've worked for months with VHDL, which is > pretty close to Verilog, but with strong types - and I hate VHDL. I get the impression Verilog is like C while VHDL is like Ada. Ada is of course notoriously inflexible. > I actually like functional languages, but for many things I want to do, > they lack essential features. Working in a very resource-constrained > environment *is* an essential feature when you have only 2k of RAM for > your program. Yeah, that type of programming still exists, but it's a very specialized niche by now (ultra low power, or ultra high quantity). Phones have megabytes, not kilobytes. If using a $3 processor with 64MB of ram can save you a month of development time compared to a $1 processor with 64k, you have to ship an awful lot of units to make up that extra cost. I'm working on a thing like that now: the first version was programmed in C, the second in Python, and the Python overhead was addressed by simply upgrading the hardware from a 10 mhz(?) 8-bitter to a 400 mhz ARM at the cost of a few dollars. Maybe some future version done in millions of units will attack the unit cost by going back to small processors and C, but for a few thousand units (where we are now) it's just not worth the added development pain. > With the Forth OOP extensions, we also see the Blub paradox. We have > more than 20 different OOP extensions to Forth, and most of them are the > greatest thing than sliced bread for their author, This may be cultural, the Forth notion of "redefine the problem" by reinventing the whole world from the ground up. Chuck himself is an extreme example of this, pursuing the philosophy all the way to the silicon and the CAD tools. I think he is back to using standard keyboards now, though.
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Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-08-29 23:00 -0700
Re: Article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-30 01:47 -0700
Re: Article anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-08-30 12:13 +0000
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-08-30 11:31 -0400
Missing from USENET - was [Re: Article] Richard Owlett <rowlett@pcnetinc.com> - 2012-08-30 10:37 -0500
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Re: Article hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2012-08-30 19:56 -0700
Re: Article awegel@arcor.de (Alex Wegel) - 2012-08-31 12:35 +0200
Re: Article "Greg Bailey" <greg@greenarraychips.com> - 2012-08-31 17:51 -0700
Re: Article Whammo <sidciavic@gmail.com> - 2012-08-31 18:22 -0700
Re: Article Mark Wills <forthfreak@gmail.com> - 2012-09-01 01:04 -0700
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-02 16:18 -0700
Re: Article Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-09-01 01:48 -0700
Re: Article rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-09-02 18:38 -0400
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-02 16:59 -0700
Re: Article Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-09-03 13:07 -0500
Re: Article Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-09-03 14:25 -0700
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-04 17:04 -0700
Re: Article Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2012-09-05 06:23 +0300
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-03 18:17 -0400
Re: Article "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-09-03 12:37 -1000
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-04 04:48 -0400
Re: Article Alex McDonald <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2012-09-04 03:39 -0700
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 02:48 -0400
Re: Article awegel@arcor.de (Alex Wegel) - 2012-09-04 13:18 +0200
Re: Article Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-04 16:03 +0200
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 03:29 -0400
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 03:24 -0400
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-04 08:12 -0700
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 16:06 -0400
Re: Article Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2012-09-04 11:35 -0500
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 02:40 -0400
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-05 13:28 -0700
Re: Article "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-09-04 08:32 -1000
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 02:22 -0400
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-05 10:08 -0700
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 16:07 -0400
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-05 13:39 -0700
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-05 13:35 -0700
Re: Article "Ed" <invalid@nospam.com> - 2012-09-07 17:24 +1000
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-07 05:28 -0400
Re: Article Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-09-07 03:28 -0700
Re: Article Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2012-09-07 13:31 +0300
Re: Article jacko <jackokring@gmail.com> - 2012-09-07 06:33 -0700
Re: Article Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-09-07 09:06 -0700
Re: Article Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-09-07 09:03 -0700
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-04 16:45 -0700
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-03 21:38 -0700
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 02:51 -0400
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-05 10:49 -0700
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 16:20 -0400
Re: Article "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-09-05 16:06 -0400
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-05 13:32 -0700
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-05 13:50 -0700
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-05 22:34 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-09-07 14:05 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-08 01:53 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-09-07 18:22 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-09 00:08 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-09-08 17:34 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-09 15:57 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-09-09 08:12 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-09 22:07 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-09-09 15:14 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-10 01:52 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-09-09 19:17 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-10 15:01 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-09-10 07:00 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-11 01:07 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-09-10 18:47 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Elizabeth D Rather <erather@forth.com> - 2012-09-10 16:08 -1000
Re: Forth as a polarising language anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-09-11 07:51 +0000
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-11 19:24 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-11 21:40 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-09-09 14:58 -1000
Re: Forth as a polarising language Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-09-09 18:24 -0700
Re: Forth as a polarising language Anonymous <nobody@remailer.paranoici.org> - 2012-09-09 13:42 +0000
Re: Forth as a polarising language mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-09-08 10:34 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-08 07:06 -0400
Re: Forth as a polarising language mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-09-08 16:14 +0200
DEFER (was: Forth as a polarising language) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-09-08 16:47 +0000
Re: Forth as a polarising language Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-09 04:22 -0400
OOP (was: Forth as a polarising language) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-09-08 11:38 +0000
Re: OOP Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-08 08:19 -0400
Re: OOP mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-09-08 16:41 +0200
Re: OOP Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-09 04:24 -0400
Re: Forth as a polarising language mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-09-09 12:03 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language "A. K." <akk@nospam.org> - 2012-09-09 13:20 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-10 08:33 -0400
Re: OOP mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-09-08 16:54 +0200
Re: OOP Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-09 04:12 -0400
OOP (was: Forth as a polarising language) mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-09-08 16:28 +0200
Re: OOP (was: Forth as a polarising language) mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-09-08 16:56 +0200
Re: OOP (was: Forth as a polarising language) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-09-08 15:00 +0000
Re: OOP (was: Forth as a polarising language) Roger Ivie <rivie@ridgenet.net> - 2012-09-08 11:56 -0500
Re: OOP Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-09 04:20 -0400
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-09 00:15 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-09 00:50 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language mhx@iae.nl (Marcel Hendrix) - 2012-09-09 03:12 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2012-09-09 16:01 +0200
Re: Forth as a polarising language "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-09-09 14:54 -1000
[OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] Richard Owlett <rowlett@pcnetinc.com> - 2012-09-10 06:33 -0500
Re: [OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-10 08:16 -0400
Re: [OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-10 08:28 -0400
Re: [OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-09-10 12:43 +0000
Re: [OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-10 09:24 -0400
Re: [OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] Richard Owlett <rowlett@pcnetinc.com> - 2012-09-10 08:12 -0500
Re: [OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-10 09:32 -0400
Re: [OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-09-10 07:40 -1000
Re: [OT] Newsreader problem - was [Re: Forth as a polarising language] Richard Owlett <rowlett@pcnetinc.com> - 2012-09-10 14:42 -0500
Re: Forth as a polarising language Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2012-09-10 07:59 -0400
Re: Forth as a polarising language rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-09-10 12:27 -0400
Re: Forth as a polarising language "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-09-10 07:44 -1000
Re: Forth as a polarising language rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2012-09-10 12:30 -0400
Re: Article "Ed" <invalid@nospam.com> - 2012-09-09 14:13 +1000
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-11 11:26 -0700
Re: Article "Paul E. Bennett" <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2012-09-11 21:02 +0100
Re: Article vandys@vsta.org - 2012-09-11 20:37 +0000
Re: Article "Ed" <invalid@nospam.com> - 2012-09-12 20:01 +1000
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-11 16:50 -0700
Re: Article Mark Wills <forthfreak@gmail.com> - 2012-09-12 00:45 -0700
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-12 18:44 -0700
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-12 20:26 -0700
Re: Article "Ed" <invalid@nospam.com> - 2012-09-12 20:47 +1000
Re: Article Hugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com> - 2012-09-06 19:28 -0700
Re: Article John Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com> - 2012-09-07 09:57 -0700
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