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Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth

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On 1/9/17 3:35 PM, Paul Rubin wrote:
> "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> writes:
>> That's using an ANSI standard as a means of gaining formal recognition
>> (or losing an existing perception) in the hope it will secure
>> financial benefit for the Forth industry as a whole.
>
> That's a perfectly normal reason to standardize something.

Yes, in fact it's one of the main motivations for all the language 
standards.

>> All the evidence is it either did not work or possibly precipitated
>> the route of Forth vendors from the market

The casual vendors (people whose first goal in life is something other 
than Forth systems and projects) were pretty well gone by the tine the 
process started, as it became clear that making a serious business out 
of Forth took dedication. Ray Duncan, for example, was a doctor, and he 
opted out to do an advanced residency in neonatology. The remaining 
serious vendors were Creative Solutions (Don Colburn), MPE, Firmworks 
(Mitch Bradley, representing Open Boot for Sun) and FORTH, Inc. They 
stayed with the project throughout.

> Maybe true, hard to tell.  In any case, an idea that turns out
> afterwards to not work was not necessarily a bad idea when it was first
> put in place.
>
> It's more obvious to me that Forth's appropriate technical niche shrunk
> as computers changed over the years, so non-standard Forths have also
> fallen into disuse.  I don't see how not having a standard could help
> that.

Forth did not spread primarily because (a) it wasn't picked up by any 
noted academic groups; (b) it didn't receive enough publicity (articles 
written for the press, etc., and (c) in the 80's it acquired a 
reputation as being a hobbyist toy, largely due to FIG activities and 
promotions, and this was seen as a negative by many organizations.

> I don't personally care much about using Forth commercially or about
> writing portable Forth code, but I still see ANS useful as a basis of
> common understanding.  If I code something in gforth with the intention
> of porting it to smaller Forth on an MCU, it's easier if the MCU Forth
> at least somewhat resembles ANS even if some aspects differ.

Yes, that remains a major advantage.

>>> It also became a great deal easier to hire Forth programmers who knew
>>> Standard Forth
>> Really?  What Forth programmer doesn't know ANS Forth which is a formal
>> description of 40 years of Forth?
>
> You mean now?  Or when the ANS was first developed?  It's sure easier to
> deal with a Forth reasonably similar to what you're used to, than a
> completely idiosyncratic one that you might encounter if someone decided
> to invent a Forth from scratch as part of a hardware project.

The Standard definitely made it easier to hire Forth programmers, 
because they had a better shared understanding.

>> "I would find examples of people using standard "portable" ANSI Forth
>> routines from libraries that were 10,000 times slower than the way I
>> would do it."  J. Fox
>
> He was talking about running a software ANS implementation vs. running a
> limited Forth on a hardware Forth chip.

Jeff's company also suffered from a management decision to develop code 
by doing literal translations from C to Forth, leading to some 
excruciatingly bad Forth code.

>> 200x has all the appearance of a robber going through the pockets of
>> the corpse that is ANS Forth looking for glory that evaporated long
>> ago.
>
> Forth's days of growth are over, but it's perfectly reasonable for those
> who use it to want to update the standard to reflect present-day
> practices.

True.

Cheers,
Elizabeth

-- 
Elizabeth R. Conklin
FORTH, Inc.
6080 Center Drive, Suite 600
Los Angeles, CA  90045
USA

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Just saw this - Description of Forth Steve Graham <solitary.wanderer52@gmail.com> - 2017-01-05 09:11 -0800
  Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth november.nihal@gmail.com - 2017-01-05 12:52 -0800
  Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-01-07 12:08 +1100
    Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-01-06 18:09 -0800
      Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-01-08 11:47 +1100
        Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-01-07 17:59 -0800
        Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-01-07 18:23 -0800
        Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-01-07 18:51 -1000
          Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-01-08 17:02 -0800
          Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth "HAA" <someone@microsoft.com> - 2017-01-10 10:38 +1100
            Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2017-01-09 17:35 -0800
              Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-01-09 18:32 -1000
                Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-01-10 04:17 -0600
                Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Alex <alex@rivadpm.com> - 2017-01-10 13:41 +0000
                Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-01-10 08:05 -0600
            Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Alex <alex@rivadpm.com> - 2017-01-10 13:50 +0000
        Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Alex <alex@rivadpm.com> - 2017-01-08 08:58 +0000
    Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-01-06 18:58 -0800
      Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth november.nihal@gmail.com - 2017-01-08 14:30 -0800
        Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2017-01-08 21:15 -0800
    Re: Just saw this - Description of Forth november.nihal@gmail.com - 2017-01-08 14:24 -0800

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