Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]


Groups > comp.lang.forth > #15259 > unrolled thread

Re: Article

Started byHugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com>
First post2012-08-29 23:00 -0700
Last post2012-09-07 09:57 -0700
Articles 20 on this page of 126 — 29 participants

Back to article view | Back to comp.lang.forth

This discussion starts older than the indexed window; earlier articles aren't shown. The article labeled Started by below is the oldest one visible, not the original post.


Contents

  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
        Missing from USENET - was [Re: Article] Mark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk> - 2012-08-30 10:30 -0700
    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

Page 3 of 7 — ← Prev page 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7  Next page →


#15506

From"Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm>
Date2012-09-07 05:28 -0400
Message-ID<k2cei5$26l$1@speranza.aioe.org>
In reply to#15460
"Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> wrote in message
news:bMSdndia-prB1NvNnZ2dnUVZ_gqdnZ2d@supernews.com...
> On 9/3/12 10:48 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:

> > All US Christians are taught to be homophobic too, even if
> > that's not what the Bible actually says.
>
> This is absolutely not true.

Which part?

> I was raised a Presbyterian and have been
> an active Episcopalian for most of my adult life. Evangelicals and
> Catholics disapprove of gays. (as well as a lot of straight behavior),
> but most mainstream Christians are taught not to be judgmental about
> things like race or sexual orientation.

Oh, that part...  Well, homophobia is what the Bible teaches ...  Do you
believe the Bible is the word of God?  Doesn't the Bible tell you to preach
the word of God to others?  By not teaching the word of God, i.e.,
homophobia, as God commanded aren't you rejecting God?

We probably shouldn't get onto the topic of religion, especially
Christianity.  There is so much truly insane stuff in the KJV Bible that
it's hard to believe anyone who says it's the word of God or that it's the
truth.  E.g., eunuchs not being allowed into Heaven (Deuteronomy 23:1-2),
unless you became a eunuch as penance for committing adultery (Matthew
19:1-123), which nullifies one of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17 and
Deuteronomy 5:4-21) and contradicts the claim that only Jewish virgins go to
Heaven (Revelation 7:3-4, 9:3-4, 14:1, 14:3-4)...  Of course, adulterers are
required to be murdered (Leviticus 20:10-11) also in violation of the Ten
Commandments ...  Does any that make any sense to anyone?  There are many,
many things like that in there.  There are even entire books written on the
topic of such stuff.  Of course, I seriously doubt many Christians are
remotely aware of such things.  They're not known for actually reading their
Bibles, except the parts which represent their ideal Faith, that of
Christianity being purely good, rational, with a loving and caring God.
I.e., they're very selective in what they read and accept as Faith and
Truth.

Hey, don't worry about it.  The Bible tells you to eat your kids too,
preaches women are inferior, preaches racism against blacks, preaches
slavery and also condemns it, told Christians to kill all non-Christians (in
direct contradiction to the Ten Commandments), mentions the other Gods in
Heaven, that Jesus has hatred, that Jesus has siblings, that Jesus has horns
and multiple eyes, that there are talking donkeys, that there are beasts in
heaven, to only pray to God while in a closet, and, of course, that only
Jewish virgins go to Heaven.  Why do non-Jews think they can get into
Heaven?

So, is religion off-topic here too?  It *definately* should be.  Why did no
one take offense to it?


Rod Pemberton


[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15507

FromMark Wills <markrobertwills@yahoo.co.uk>
Date2012-09-07 03:28 -0700
Message-ID<622b8cc3-0ef2-4075-9f3c-f2577105c550@s2g2000vbj.googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15506
On Sep 7, 10:25 am, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h...@notemailnot.cmm>
wrote:
> "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erat...@forth.com> wrote in messagenews:bMSdndia-prB1NvNnZ2dnUVZ_gqdnZ2d@supernews.com...
>
> > On 9/3/12 10:48 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> > > All US Christians are taught to be homophobic too, even if
> > > that's not what the Bible actually says.
>
> > This is absolutely not true.
>
> Which part?
>
> > I was raised a Presbyterian and have been
> > an active Episcopalian for most of my adult life. Evangelicals and
> > Catholics disapprove of gays. (as well as a lot of straight behavior),
> > but most mainstream Christians are taught not to be judgmental about
> > things like race or sexual orientation.
>
> Oh, that part...  Well, homophobia is what the Bible teaches ...  Do you
> believe the Bible is the word of God?  Doesn't the Bible tell you to preach
> the word of God to others?  By not teaching the word of God, i.e.,
> homophobia, as God commanded aren't you rejecting God?
>
> We probably shouldn't get onto the topic of religion, especially
> Christianity.  There is so much truly insane stuff in the KJV Bible that
> it's hard to believe anyone who says it's the word of God or that it's the
> truth.  E.g., eunuchs not being allowed into Heaven (Deuteronomy 23:1-2),
> unless you became a eunuch as penance for committing adultery (Matthew
> 19:1-123), which nullifies one of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17 and
> Deuteronomy 5:4-21) and contradicts the claim that only Jewish virgins go to
> Heaven (Revelation 7:3-4, 9:3-4, 14:1, 14:3-4)...  Of course, adulterers are
> required to be murdered (Leviticus 20:10-11) also in violation of the Ten
> Commandments ...  Does any that make any sense to anyone?  There are many,
> many things like that in there.  There are even entire books written on the
> topic of such stuff.  Of course, I seriously doubt many Christians are
> remotely aware of such things.  They're not known for actually reading their
> Bibles, except the parts which represent their ideal Faith, that of
> Christianity being purely good, rational, with a loving and caring God.
> I.e., they're very selective in what they read and accept as Faith and
> Truth.
>
> Hey, don't worry about it.  The Bible tells you to eat your kids too,
> preaches women are inferior, preaches racism against blacks, preaches
> slavery and also condemns it, told Christians to kill all non-Christians (in
> direct contradiction to the Ten Commandments), mentions the other Gods in
> Heaven, that Jesus has hatred, that Jesus has siblings, that Jesus has horns
> and multiple eyes, that there are talking donkeys, that there are beasts in
> heaven, to only pray to God while in a closet, and, of course, that only
> Jewish virgins go to Heaven.  Why do non-Jews think they can get into
> Heaven?
>
> So, is religion off-topic here too?  It *definately* should be.  Why did no
> one take offense to it?
>
> Rod Pemberton

What? So I'm *not* going to heaven?

Perhaps I'll have that beer tonight afterall.

Perhaps me and the wife will make love with the light on. I mean...
what the hell... Knock yourself out, right? I'm not going to heaven
anyway ;-)

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15508

FromRon Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com>
Date2012-09-07 13:31 +0300
Message-ID<k2ciet$m6j$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#15506
I'm sure I'll regret jumping in, but I wonder...

On 09/07/2012 12:28 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> ...  E.g., eunuchs not being allowed into Heaven (Deuteronomy 23:1-2),

Deut 23:1-2 does not say anything of the kind, neither in the Hebrew
original nor in the KJV translation. Where did you get the idea that
"congregation of God" means "Heaven"?

> ... and contradicts the claim that only Jewish virgins go to
> Heaven (Revelation 7:3-4, 9:3-4, 14:1, 14:3-4)...

Not being Christian, I can't claim any expertise in their scripture.
But I can read English well enough, and don't see where the quotes you
cited from Revelation have anything whatsoever to do with "Jewish
virgins".  Maybe I don't have the right decoder-ring?

> Of course, adulterers are required to be murdered (Leviticus 20:10-11)
also
> in violation of the Ten Commandments ...  Does any that make any sense to
> anyone?

Certainly.  Just as a state reserves the right to punish a murderer by
means of the death-penalty, so too in this case.  Doesn't matter whether
or not you agree with that punishment for that particular crime, it's a
legal code -- and as such makes perfect sense.

...returning now to lurk-mode.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15510

Fromjacko <jackokring@gmail.com>
Date2012-09-07 06:33 -0700
Message-ID<7e8166fa-f92e-4997-a100-eb558d0bc645@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15508
I've warshipped cheeses before, and Cambezola is best, a nice blue brie. It's all lies. Feeding the millions using preserved food, damn lies I tell you, you'll all burn in hell, or you can buy a special dispensation for only $666.

Cheers Jacko

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15512

FromHowerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk>
Date2012-09-07 09:06 -0700
Message-ID<ae8c2075-cf77-4c17-a868-20bd35562546@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15510
On Friday, September 7, 2012 3:33:47 PM UTC+2, jacko wrote:
> I've warshipped cheeses before, and Cambezola is best, a nice blue brie. It's all lies. Feeding the millions using preserved food, damn lies I tell you, you'll all burn in hell, or you can buy a special dispensation for only $666.
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers Jacko

Hi Jacko,

I've got to know - is this from "The Life of Brian" by any chance???
Googling didn't help...

Best regards,
Howerd

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15511

FromHowerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk>
Date2012-09-07 09:03 -0700
Message-ID<e0513afc-3519-448a-ac71-0f9b9c8841f3@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15506
On Friday, September 7, 2012 11:25:29 AM UTC+2, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> "Elizabeth D. Rather" <era...@forth.com> wrote in message
> 
> news:bMSdndia-prB1NvNnZ2dnUVZ_gqdnZ2d@supernews.com...
> 
> > On 9/3/12 10:48 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> > > All US Christians are taught to be homophobic too, even if
> 
> > > that's not what the Bible actually says.
> 
> >
> 
> > This is absolutely not true.
> 
> 
> 
> Which part?
> 
> 
> 
> > I was raised a Presbyterian and have been
> 
> > an active Episcopalian for most of my adult life. Evangelicals and
> 
> > Catholics disapprove of gays. (as well as a lot of straight behavior),
> 
> > but most mainstream Christians are taught not to be judgmental about
> 
> > things like race or sexual orientation.
> 
> 
> 
> Oh, that part...  Well, homophobia is what the Bible teaches ...  Do you
> 
> believe the Bible is the word of God?  Doesn't the Bible tell you to preach
> 
> the word of God to others?  By not teaching the word of God, i.e.,
> 
> homophobia, as God commanded aren't you rejecting God?
> 
> 
> 
> We probably shouldn't get onto the topic of religion, especially
> 
> Christianity.  There is so much truly insane stuff in the KJV Bible that
> 
> it's hard to believe anyone who says it's the word of God or that it's the
> 
> truth.  E.g., eunuchs not being allowed into Heaven (Deuteronomy 23:1-2),
> 
> unless you became a eunuch as penance for committing adultery (Matthew
> 
> 19:1-123), which nullifies one of the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17 and
> 
> Deuteronomy 5:4-21) and contradicts the claim that only Jewish virgins go to
> 
> Heaven (Revelation 7:3-4, 9:3-4, 14:1, 14:3-4)...  Of course, adulterers are
> 
> required to be murdered (Leviticus 20:10-11) also in violation of the Ten
> 
> Commandments ...  Does any that make any sense to anyone?  There are many,
> 
> many things like that in there.  There are even entire books written on the
> 
> topic of such stuff.  Of course, I seriously doubt many Christians are
> 
> remotely aware of such things.  They're not known for actually reading their
> 
> Bibles, except the parts which represent their ideal Faith, that of
> 
> Christianity being purely good, rational, with a loving and caring God.
> 
> I.e., they're very selective in what they read and accept as Faith and
> 
> Truth.
> 
> 
> 
> Hey, don't worry about it.  The Bible tells you to eat your kids too,
> 
> preaches women are inferior, preaches racism against blacks, preaches
> 
> slavery and also condemns it, told Christians to kill all non-Christians (in
> 
> direct contradiction to the Ten Commandments), mentions the other Gods in
> 
> Heaven, that Jesus has hatred, that Jesus has siblings, that Jesus has horns
> 
> and multiple eyes, that there are talking donkeys, that there are beasts in
> 
> heaven, to only pray to God while in a closet, and, of course, that only
> 
> Jewish virgins go to Heaven.  Why do non-Jews think they can get into
> 
> Heaven?
> 
> 
> 
> So, is religion off-topic here too?  It *definately* should be.  Why did no
> 
> one take offense to it?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Rod Pemberton

Hi Rod,

I have no problem with off topic discussions, but I do have a problem with incorrect information. 
This also implies that I have a problem with sweeping generalisations presented as fact, because at least some part of the message is certain to be wrong.
( yes I know this is a sweeping generalisation... ;-)

> There is so much truly insane stuff in the KJV Bible that
> it's hard to believe anyone who says it's the word of God or that it's the
> truth.
Making over-the-top comments makes it very hard to discuss anything - your use of "truly insane stuff" without specifying in detail what you consider to be "insane" is not helping the discussion. What was written then was for that time, written by those people, and today it must be interpreted in the light of history and common sense.
I would say that "anyone who says it's the word of God" is being a bit naive. And of course I would need to know their definition of God before forming an opinion. 

> The Bible tells you to eat your kids too
I think they missed this one out at Sunday School when I was a kid ;-)

The bible is a book, and like all books needs interpretation in context.

Each book has its own history and context - some of them are boring, others are absolutely brilliant. When I was going through my divorce in 2006 I read the bible a lot. It helped me to realise that other people had also had their share or problems - I particularly like the way David played his flute to stop his king from beheading him - an early form of anger management. And of course at the time I found the Old Testament punishment for adultary perfectly acceptable, although now with the benefit of hindsight, maybe that's a little extreme...

The point I want to make is that emotive words go against *my* religion - I am a scientific theist - I want to understand the truth, and to do that I would like to have balanced, rational debate, and I believe that this requires calm words.

Some more OT personal information : I was lucky enough to work on the famous/infamous Riyadh airport project in Huntsville, Alabama, together with Elizabeth Rather, Leon Wagner, Dean Sanderson, Greg Bailey and many others.
I was also lucky enough to spend some time with Chuck Moore at EuroForth. 
Apart from a shared passion for the beauty and elegance of Forth, I have the utmost respect for all of these people, both personally and professionally.

I do not like posts containing derogatory remarks about individuals. 
The trouble is that the post that I am replying to in the context of this thread appears to be belittling all Christians, and that probably includes me (we need to define Christian before I can confirm that).
More OT personal info : when I was working on the Riyadh project, I went to the local Methodist church - I was made to feel so welcome, invited to Thanksgiving and weekend outings - a truly caring bunch of people. 

> that there are talking donkeys
I think may be you're mixing this up with Shrek? 
And, yes, I am poking fun at you for making such sweeping generalisations ;-)

Best regards,

Howerd 

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15462

FromHugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com>
Date2012-09-04 16:45 -0700
Message-ID<97f7c873-6081-4c9d-86a0-33b9439d861b@k9g2000pbr.googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15435
On Sep 3, 3:37 pm, "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erat...@forth.com> wrote:
> On 9/3/12 12:17 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> ...
>
> > He rants about symtab, Testra, driving a Taxi, and Ms. Rather.  You rant
> > about Lua, Lisp, and all sorts of crap.  Technically, he qualifies as a
> > "kook" and you as a "troll".
>
> Just to clarify, Hugh is also very profoundly homophobic. John made an
> innocuous remark about his partner several years ago, and Hugh went off
> on a tirade which I found so offensive that I called him on it. This is
> why he hates me. I put him in my "kill file" long ago, so I don't need
> to read his posts. That is why I find it easy to ignore him. I wish more
> people would do the same.
>
> Cheers,
> Elizabeth

Jeff Fox informed me that you are not homosexual, but that you "use"
homosexuality to defend your exulted position here on comp.lang.forth.
That is most likely true --- like most salespeople you are conniving,
and you categorize the entire world as either customer or competitor,
but there is no "Forth community" per se (he told me about how you
absolutely hated FIG back in the 1980s and did everything possible to
defeat them).

That "innocuous remark" of Passaniti occured in a thread when I was
questioning why ANS-Forth doesn't have a D/ word. You had said that
Chuck Moore would be able to write my program without D/ just using
the mixed-arithmetic functions. That was not true (you didn't even
know what my program was, so how would you know anyway?). Also, even
if he could, that is not very useful considering that Chuck Moore
doesn't work for me. This was just your standard name-dropping --- you
aren't a programmer at all, but you have a great deal of faith in
Chuck Moore (forgetting that he no longer works for you, or will even
talk to you). Suddenly, Passaniti shows up talking up his
homosexuality. I didn't realize it then, but this is a diversionary
tactic. I think that you pay him to do this. The same thing is true in
this thread --- I pointed out that you have never written a Forth
program in your life, and that PolyForth was a grotesque embarrassment
(those 3 criticisms that I made were standard "talking points" for C
programmers throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s).

You strive to convince people to put me in their kill file because of
my homophobia (the horror! the horror!) --- but you do this only
because you see me as a competitor.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15439

FromJohn Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com>
Date2012-09-03 21:38 -0700
Message-ID<f12ce303-7097-4c3a-9778-b4c01fa9acf3@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15434
On Monday, September 3, 2012 6:14:23 PM UTC-4, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> > The normal mechanism that mediates most people on
> > the Internet is their professional reputation.
> 
> Dude, I don't know where you get such stuff.  
> Do you make it up on the fly?

I'm not sure what I'm supposedly making up.  Are you seriously going to tell me that when evaluating job candidates, contract bidders, or other professional and business relationships that people don't Google each other and use what they may find?  I specifically used the word "Internet" and not "Usenet" because of this.  Hugh hasn't limited himself to just Usenet.

> > Hugh is a hobbyist; he has no professional
> > reputation that he needs to uphold.
> 
> So?  Why does that matter?

So you honestly believe that if Hugh was to seek employment as a programmer or put a bid out on a programming contract that a Google search of his messages in comp.lang.forth would be seen as irrelevant?  Even the messages where he himself says he can't work with others, steadfastly refuses to do research, and blames his own failures on others?  You don't think that matters?

> > So he can write whatever he likes about anyone
> > and never worry.
> 
> Anyone can do that.  You've done that.

I think there is a big difference between my criticism of someone's ideas with Hugh's inventing complete histories about people.  I think there is a big difference between going after someone for being a pompous ass (for example, you) and making up statements about others (like Hugh's claim that Elizabeth said his code sucked).

> > But that's okay in Hugh's case, because pretty much
> > everyone considers him to be a joke.
> 
> Speak for yourself.  He rants, but so do you.  Are you a joke?  Would you
> like me to call you one?  I've got no problem doing so.  I really don't.
> You're definately not on my "nice person" list.

Awww shucks.  I guess that means I'm not getting a Christmas card from you.  And just when we were getting along so well together.  

> > But it doesn't take long before he descends into spirals of insanity.
> 
> He's clearly interested in tarnishing Ms. Rather's reputation or perhaps
> provoking her.  Honestly, I don't think it's working.  She's most helpful,
> always seem to be very polite, and thoroughly ignores Hugh.
> 
> But, I've seen nothing "insane" from him.

Yes Rod, I know how you work.  I'm not claiming he is clinically insane so you can save yourself the copy-and-paste from Wikipedia.  I am saying many of his more fantastic statements flip between bizarre and irrational.  Sorry for using the word "insane" colloquially.  I'll use your own word instead: kook.

> He rants about symtab, Testra, driving a Taxi, and Ms. Rather.  You rant
> about Lua, Lisp, and all sorts of crap.  Technically, he qualifies as a
> "kook" and you as a "troll".

And you are a tedious "pedant".

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15473

From"Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm>
Date2012-09-05 02:51 -0400
Message-ID<k26sjs$rmc$1@speranza.aioe.org>
In reply to#15439
"John Passaniti" <john.passaniti@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f12ce303-7097-4c3a-9778-b4c01fa9acf3@googlegroups.com...

> [...] pompous ass (for example, you) [...]

Oh, I've never been a pompous ass.  I'm deadly serious, typically 100% of
the time, unless I indicate otherwise.  You should read my words _as if_
(not a threat) a gun is to your head, always.  I'm that serious.  The
problem is that you don't recognize my serious, exacting, and correct
nature as such.  You misclassify it as "pompous ass" etc.

> I am saying many of his more fantastic statements flip
> between bizarre and irrational.

I don't recall much "irrationality" from him, although I'm sure it's there.
Unfortunately, I'm *by far* the most non-irrational person in the groups I
post to.  I do recall some "bizarre" statements, but not much different than
some dry UK humor.  That's why I recall them.  They were funny, but _only_
if you took them that way.  Are you familiar with the Aristocrats joke?
It's a joke comedians tell to each other.  It's different each time.  But,
it's also a joke you have to take a certain way for it to be funny.

But, who are you to judge him?

It's apparent from my comments that you *definately* were offended on a
number of occasions when I expressed my perceived judgements about you.
So, why is it _always_ important for you to express your perceived
(mis)judgements of others here?  Why am I going over this lesson with you
yet again?  You took offense to my statements about you, yet you still have
*NO* sympathy for others whom you are intentionally offending.  What is your
psychological problem?

> And you are a tedious "pedant".

No, I'm not detail oriented.


Rod Pemberton

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15478

FromJohn Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com>
Date2012-09-05 10:49 -0700
Message-ID<85e580b7-bfa2-4fb4-8e3b-5c7aa7c21670@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15473
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 2:48:31 AM UTC-4, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> Oh, I've never been a pompous ass.  I'm deadly serious, typically 100% of
> the time, unless I indicate otherwise.  You should read my words _as if_
> (not a threat) a gun is to your head, always.  I'm that serious.  The
> problem is that you don't recognize my serious, exacting, and correct
> nature as such.  You misclassify it as "pompous ass" etc.

You bring up a very good point, Rod!  So often through life, we make character judgments about others based on irrelevant facts like what they wrote, the kinds of arguments they engage in, and their general behavior.  Based on those things, I called you a pompous ass.  But clearly, that's wrong!  I mean, if we all went around basing our assessments of others on how they present themselves, just think about the wrong kind of impressions we're likely to have!

Take you for example.  I mistakenly called you a pompous ass because you engage in the logical fallacies of slippery slope arguments ("we're born this way" applied to pedophiles and rapists) and speaking for and over-generalization of a group of people ("LGBT individuals feel").  There's more-- like your pedantic arguments-- but as you state, I shouldn't judge you by your own words.  I should instead ask you how I should judge you.  

So when I see you engage in logical fallacy or pedantic debate, I'll just remember that you're not a pompous ass.  It's just a manifestation of you being /serious/.  And then I'll be able to appreciate your finely-crafted messages even more.

> I don't recall much "irrationality" from him, although I'm sure it's there.

Yes, his latest message in this thread is completely rational.  Why, I can't find a single fault with anything he says.

> But, who are you to judge him?

Correct.  Just like I learned you're not really a pompous ass, just really /serious/, I shouldn't be judging Hugh merely on what he's written.  I should really just ask him to clear away my obvious misinterpretation of his messages and ask him how he wants to be viewed.  Who knows, maybe he's not the xenophobic man-child he presents himself as.  Maybe he too is just... serious.

> It's apparent from my comments that you *definately* were offended on a
> number of occasions when I expressed my perceived judgements about you.

Yes, that wasn't very nice of you.  You should have asked me first how I should be perceived.  Of course you probably don't have to do that because being that I'm part of the LGBT community, you can just look at any of us and know how all of us think.

> So, why is it _always_ important for you to express your perceived
> (mis)judgements of others here?  Why am I going over this lesson with you
> yet again?  

It's because I just don't learn, Rod.  I mean, with such a stunningly *serious* teacher like yourself and the fine example you set here, clearly the problem is with me.  Do you have any worksheets or exercises I might use to better appreciate you as a teacher and role model?

> > And you are a tedious "pedant".
> 
> No, I'm not detail oriented.

Yes, that is a secondary definition of the word.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15486

From"Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm>
Date2012-09-05 16:20 -0400
Message-ID<k28c12$qfi$1@speranza.aioe.org>
In reply to#15478
"John Passaniti" <john.passaniti@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:85e580b7-bfa2-4fb4-8e3b-5c7aa7c21670@googlegroups.com...
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 2:48:31 AM UTC-4, Rod Pemberton wrote:


[snip of much of JP's overbearing idiocy...]

> > Oh, I've never been a pompous ass.  I'm deadly serious, typically 100%
> > of the time, [...]
>
> You bring up a very good point, Rod!  So often through life, we make
> character judgments about others based on irrelevant facts like what
> they wrote, the kinds of arguments they engage in, and their general
> behavior.
>

There is nothing wrong with that.

> Based on those things, I called you a pompous ass.  But clearly,
> that's wrong!

Exactly, it's wrong, but not why you said.  You have no business posting
your opinions about others here.  Every time you do, it's insultive.  It's
never anything nice.  So, keep your insults to yourself.  Or, others, like
me will defend ourselves from your vile hatred and incessant verbal abuse.

> I mean, if we all went around basing our assessments of others
> on how they present themselves, just think about the wrong kind
> of impressions we're likely to have!

You mean a more accurate impressions of others ... ?  Are you too dumb to
realize that if we knew someone was a genious at twelve, say Einstein, the
world would've been much better place?  Are you too dumb to realize that if
we more accurately knew what millions of people were like, the world would
be a much better place?  If you don't, I can't help you.  It would
definately clear up your consistent, erroneous perception of others.

> Take you for example.  I mistakenly [...]

Mistakenly?  Oh, I doubt that.  I think you did so intentionally ...

> [...] called you a pompous ass because you engage in the logical
> fallacies of slippery slope arguments ("we're born this way"
> applied to pedophiles and rapists) and speaking for and
> over-generalization of a group of people ("LGBT individuals feel").
> There's more-- like your pedantic arguments-- but as you state, I
> shouldn't judge you by your own words.

You can judge people in private.  Just don't express your judgements in
public and expect others not to retaliate to your debased opinions by
insulting you too.  From your posts archived posts in Google Groups, you're
horrid otherfucker, a truely sick fuck.  I'm not joking.  If I was in law
enforcement, I'd be watching you like a hawk.  And, I'm not talking about
any of LGBT related issues or your sexual preferences.  So, please STFU.
You could always claim it was another John Passaniti, but boy do they sure
fit your statments...

> I should instead ask you how I should judge you.

No, you just need to learn to close your mouth when it comes to expressing
your opinions about others.  They're not interested in hearing you call them
an idiot.  Maybe they are, maybe they aren't.  But, I sincerely doubt it.
So, you don't need to bring it into the conversation.

> So when I see you engage in logical fallacy or pedantic debate,
> I'll just remember that you're not a pompous ass.  It's just a
> manifestation of you being /serious/.  And then I'll be able to
> appreciate your finely-crafted messages even more.

Stick the facts of arguments.  Stop insulting others.

> > But, who are you to judge him?
>
> [...] I shouldn't be judging Hugh merely on what he's written.

Wow, you ... really ... are ... stupid.  There is no need for _you_ to
insult him or anyone else.  Take responsibility for the continous, abusive,
piece of shit insults for once in your useless Godamn life, you moron.  Stop
digging a bigger hole of more trash, lies, insults, and abuse.  No one here
likes you.

> > It's apparent from my comments that you *definately*
> > were offended on a number of occasions when I expressed
> > my perceived judgements about you.
>
> Yes, that wasn't very nice of you.

Oh, you do have feelings.  Congratulations!  We didn't know.  I was
beginning to believe that you were just a sycophant psychopath.

So, if those insults hurt you, why do you continue to do the same to others?
Do you intend to answer that question?  Does it make sense to you that you
should stop that?  Where is your empathy for others?

> You should have asked me first how I should be perceived.

Fine.  How do you want to be perceived?  Describe yourself exactly.

I asked simply because I know that after years and years of the uncalled for
verbal abuse you've dished out here that you have absolutely no hope in
heaven nor hell of changing anyone's opinion about you for the better.

> > So, why is it _always_ important for you to express your perceived
> > (mis)judgements of others here?  Why am I going over this lesson
> > with you yet again?
>
> It's because I just don't learn, Rod.

Apparently, that's so...

> I mean, with such a stunningly *serious* teacher like yourself and
> the fine example you set here, clearly the problem is with me.

No.  I'm being 100% serious, the problem is with you _because_ every time
you post all you do is insult, belittle, degrade, or attempt to humiliate
others.  You predominantly post in order to verbally abuse others.  You
don't post on-topic.  You don't post about Forth.  You don't post to prove
the truth.  You when "correct" others it's with some falsehood.  On the few
occasions, that you post something that isn't an insult or a warped
judgement on someone's personality, then you're posting about Lua or Lisp
which no one here cares about.  Apparently, comp.lang.forth is the place you
go when you need to boost your infinitesimally small ego by trashing others.
Personally, I'd like that to stop.  Not engaging in masochism might help
you.  I'm being presumptive...


Rod Pemberton



[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15481

From"Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm>
Date2012-09-05 16:06 -0400
Message-ID<k28b6a$o7a$1@speranza.aioe.org>
In reply to#15439
"John Passaniti" <john.passaniti@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:f12ce303-7097-4c3a-9778-b4c01fa9acf3@googlegroups.com...
> On Monday, September 3, 2012 6:14:23 PM UTC-4, Rod Pemberton wrote:
...

> Are you seriously going to tell me that when evaluating
> job candidates, contract bidders, or other professional and
> business relationships that people don't Google each other
> and use what they may find?

Are you going to tell me you know this from personal experience?  You've
post two to three vile, disgusting, OT rants to comp.lang.forth every year
for the 8 or so years I've been reading it.  I know from one of my recent
rants to you, that you've got mountains of filth, over decades posted to
Usenet.  Are you claiming that stuff wasn't from you?

> > > Hugh is a hobbyist; he has no professional
> > > reputation that he needs to uphold.
> >
> > So?  Why does that matter?
>
> So you honestly believe that if Hugh was to seek employment
> as a programmer or put a bid out on a programming contract
> that a Google search of his messages in comp.lang.forth would
> be seen as irrelevant?  Even the messages where he himself says
> he can't work with others, steadfastly refuses to do research, and
> blames his own failures on others?  You don't think that matters?

Does it?  If there is anyone here who should know, it'd be you.


Rod Pemberton


[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15488

FromJohn Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com>
Date2012-09-05 13:32 -0700
Message-ID<4d5114f6-1185-4bb9-b275-2e48f5fcdeb3@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15481
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:03:27 PM UTC-4, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> > Are you seriously going to tell me that when evaluating
> > job candidates, contract bidders, or other professional and
> > business relationships that people don't Google each other
> > and use what they may find?
> 
> Are you going to tell me you know this from personal experience?  

Yep.  Aside from the numerous articles I've read about the quasi-controversy over companies mining the Internet for information about job candidates, I myself had this happen to me the last time I was looking for work (about 2.5 years ago).  I was informed that as part of the interview process, they Googled me.  They did, and I now work for that company.

> You've post two to three vile, disgusting, OT rants to 
> comp.lang.forth every year for the 8 or so years I've 
> been reading it.  

Vile?  Disgusting?  I guess we all have our personal thresholds.  Such delicate sensibilities!

> I know from one of my recent rants to you, that you've 
> got mountains of filth, over decades posted to
> Usenet.  Are you claiming that stuff wasn't from you?

Probably was, and given your incredibly low thresholds for "filth" I'd love you to provide some representative links to messages so I can see just how delicate you are.  You don't have to post it here-- I know merely seeing those words again would probably cause heart palpitations.  

So please, do provide a collection of links to what you consider vile disgusting filth from me.  You can provide it in email and I'll gladly repost them on my blog or somewhere terribly public.

I'm looking forward to this list!  I really want to find out if it's the occasional use of profanity that sets you off and gives you the vapors.  Or is it about calling you things like a pompous ass (sorry, a /seriously/ pompous ass)?  Honestly, I need to know.  It's been a bad week and I need some humor.

> Does it?  If there is anyone here who should know, it'd be you.

And yet, I was hired.  And gee, with all the vile disgusting filth I post, it would seem to be impossible.

Please provide that list!  Please!  PLEASE!!!

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15491

FromHugh Aguilar <hughaguilar96@yahoo.com>
Date2012-09-05 13:50 -0700
Message-ID<9776b0d9-234a-4fd0-840c-4ddb22e3644b@sd5g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15488
On Sep 5, 1:32 pm, John Passaniti <john.passan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:03:27 PM UTC-4, Rod Pemberton wrote:
> > You've post two to three vile, disgusting, OT rants to
> > comp.lang.forth every year for the 8 or so years I've
> > been reading it.
>
> Vile?  Disgusting?  I guess we all have our personal thresholds.  Such delicate sensibilities!
> ...
> Please provide that list!  Please!  PLEASE!!!

Just do a comp.lang.forth search on "Passaniti" and words like:
"masturbation" and "gay group sex" and so forth.

Jeff Fox told me that in the old days, Passaniti would routinely post
messages about masturbation and gay group sex and so forth on
comp.lang.forth. This was all done for shock value. Also, in the old
days he routinely attacked *everybody* on c.l.f. including Elizabeth
Rather (especially Elizabeth Rather, as she was the most note-worthy
person on c.l.f.). Suddenly, everything changed: Passaniti toned down
his vile disgusting posts a lot (no more talk about masturbation) and
he stopped attacking Elizabeth Rather. He continued to attack
everybody else (his attack on my code was pretty typical), but not
E.R. and Forth Inc.. I think what caused this change was that
Elizabeth Rather made contact with him and offered to just pay him a
cash allowance to stop attacking Forth Inc.. Like I said, most faggots
never get paid to do what they do, so she didn't have to pay him very
much. Even if she paid him only $30 a month that would give him huge
bragging rights among his fellow faggots, and it would be enough money
for a night's supply of crack cocaine once per month.

This is why Elizabeth Rather brought up the subject of homosexuality
in this thread --- I certainly didn't bring up the subject (I've
already said everything that needs to be said on the subject: I don't
like 'em!) --- and Rod didn't bring up the subject either (he's
already said *more* than enough about the subject). It was Elizabeth
Rather who brought up the subject --- this is her standard
diversionary tactic whenever criticism arises regarding Forth Inc.
products, including PolyForth and SwiftForth.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15493

FromJohn Passaniti <john.passaniti@gmail.com>
Date2012-09-05 22:34 -0700
Message-ID<96e329b8-92e8-45f8-85dd-87c15bd4e174@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#15491
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012 4:50:05 PM UTC-4, Hugh Aguilar wrote:
> Jeff Fox told me that in the old days, Passaniti would routinely post
> messages about masturbation and gay group sex and so forth on
> comp.lang.forth. This was all done for shock value. 

You will indeed find a *single* off-color message from years ago using the words "masturbation" and "group sex" from me, in a silly metaphor about the difference between solo and group programming.  A single message does not "routinely" make, but you're free to pretend it does.  

It isn't surprising you and Jeff Fox seem in perfect sync on this.  Both you and Jeff Fox were fond of making wild unsupported claims and specious arguments.  When I (and others) point out the flaws in such claims and arguments, you both have pretty much the same response-- exaggerate claims about me, make up wild conspiracy theories, and come up with any distraction possible.

What is the essential difference between you and Jeff Fox?  Jeff Fox writes a few painful essays filled with misrepresentations, lies, and mangled points that Charles Moore made more succintly and clearly.  I call him on his excesses and instead of proving his points, he spends his time reading through my old messages and trying to raise a froth in others.  It doesn't work of course.  Now let's look at you.  You write symtab and base it on a faulty premise and take pride that you didn't do any serious research into the problem.  I call you on this, and your response is basically that I'm gay.

The point of commonality I see here is that regardless of how much an jerk I may be, that doesn't make Jeff Fox's excesses or yours any more valid.  Let's assume I'm a thousand times worse than everything you say I am.  How exactly does that make symtab not suck?  How does that make the faulty premise it's based on any less faulty?  Both you and Jeff Fox spent much time not debating the substance of my arguments but instead dredging out every bit of irrelevant nonsense and conspiracy theory you could.

> Also, in the old
> days he routinely attacked *everybody* on c.l.f. including Elizabeth
> Rather (especially Elizabeth Rather, as she was the most note-worthy
> person on c.l.f.). 

Nope, I "attacked" (more like strongly criticized) Elizabeth and others for two things.  The first was (and occasionaly still is) her habit of falling back to old Forth war stories that are unsupportable or not really meaningfully comparable if you stop and really think about them.  The second is her (and others) statements about other languages that expose either an shocking unfamiliarity with the language or with knowledge limited to the ancient implementations.  I don't think one should promote Forth by misrepresenting other languages and meaningless ancedotes.

> Suddenly, everything changed: Passaniti toned down
> his vile disgusting posts a lot (no more talk about 
> masturbation) and he stopped attacking Elizabeth Rather. 

The change was in Elizabeth.  Although she still occasionally falls back on old habits, I've seen far less of those messages from her over the years.  She stops writing those kinds of statements, I stop responding to those kinds of statements.  I don't see the mystery there.  I've never met Elizabeth and have no strong opinion about her.  The change in her messages over time may be independent of me or just her desire to not have to read another message where I criticize her weaker arguments.  I don't know or care.

Regarding me, the change that's been happening for a long time is that comp.lang.forth has become less interesting to me over theyears.  Back when I first got into comp.lang.forth in the late 80's, I still had a sense of wonder and joy with Forth.  Back then, lots of people were experimenting with the language, grafting original ideas and adaptions of ideas in other langauges.  And part of that, in retrospect, probably had a lot to do with the Tower of Babel that was Forth.

When standardization of the langauge was announced, I was excited.  I thought (at the time) that with a stable base, we would see fewer people endlessly reinventing Forth and focusing instead of building useful libraries.  That didn't happen.  There are exceptions to every rule, but the dominate culture in Forth is simply not about collaboration.  Forth is still very much a "lone wolf" tool and still suffers from a trival and naive notion of simplicity.  More importantly, I don't see a hell of a lot of innovation and experimentation compared to other language communities.  There's some really interesting ideas other languages are exploring, but the Forth community is largely arguing over the same tedious points they have for years.

So over the years I've become progressively less interested in comp.lang.forth.  And I've had weeks go by where I suddenly realize that I haven't even looked at comp.lang.forth.  Then I peek back in and usually find you, Rod, gavino, and a handful of others being the gift that keeps on giving.  The few things you write that are actually genuinely interesting (such as the vaporware that is Straight Forth) sometimes cause a moments worth of thought, but then you tend to destroy those points with some insane drivel or conspiracy theory.

So again, there is no mystery here.  Any change you see in my behavior is driven more by an increasing boredom with the comp.lang.forth community and content.  I don't "attack" as many people simply because I don't need the typing practice of repeating rebuttals to points that were just as wrong the first 30 times I responded to them.  

> He continued to attack
> everybody else (his attack on my code was pretty typical), but not
> E.R. and Forth Inc.. I think what caused this change was that
> Elizabeth Rather made contact with him and offered to just pay him a
> cash allowance to stop attacking Forth Inc.. 

Yes, that's a completely rational statement.

> It was Elizabeth
> Rather who brought up the subject --- this is her standard
> diversionary tactic whenever criticism arises regarding Forth Inc.
> products, including PolyForth and SwiftForth.

So how is that measurement of the performance of symtab coming along?  Oh, I forgot, somehow the conspiracy runs so deep that it even prevents you from supporting your own claims.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15518 — Re: Forth as a polarising language

FromPaul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Date2012-09-07 14:05 -0700
SubjectRe: Forth as a polarising language
Message-ID<7xk3w58rwq.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>
In reply to#15493
Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> writes:
> Agreed. I would like to add a sharing and version control system into
> the language ( colorForth , of course ;-)

This would be awesome, a distributed VCS for block-based programs ;-).

> mentioning Forth in a work context in England often produces an
> over-the-top negative reaction. 

I heard some mention of that before, so I gave it sort of a try.  I
worked with an English guy who does a lot of embedded programming and
got started in the 1980's, which was Forth's heyday.  So I said
something about Forth to him at the office to see how he'd react, and it
turns out he had never even heard of Forth.  

I also mentioned some Forth stuff at a Haskell meeting a few months ago,
as geeky a group of programming language nerds that one could hope for.
The mention drew some smiles and some shrugs, but certainly no
hostility.

> I have also heard reports of attacks on several Forth notables in FIG
> meetings etc. 

I've heard of Chuck getting hassled for writing a Forth system around a
weird keyboard, and I guess Colorforth didn't really catch on either.
Is that what you're referring to?

> My own theory is that most people in a professional software
> environment like to have their own piece of complexity (expertise)
> that only they know. Forth tends to be too simple.  

Meh, this may be controversial but in my opinion Forth is more
complicated than Lisp, from either an implementer's or a user's point of
view.  Forth uses many clever tricks to operate in a rather restricted
computing model, using minimal machine resources.  It's really cool that
way, for those of us into that sort of thing.  Lisp, IMHO, has more
conceptual clarity.  The price of this is that a naive Lisp is far less
efficient than a traditional Forth, and it can't operate in hard
realtime because of unpredictable gc delays.  For the now-wide class of
problems where you have plenty of machine resources and don't care about
occasional processing pauses, Forth's advantage becomes harder to
demonstrate.  If I buy the idea (disputed, but it's true ;-)) that
today's trendy interpreted languages are really just Lisp with some
added syntax sugar and features, then it seems to me that simplicity is
doing fine.

> The hostility occurs when someone cannot demonstrate superiority using
> Forth, so they feel inferior.  The effect definitely seems to be real.
> If this is the case, what can we do to make Forth more acceptable?

Acceptable to who?  Forth does ok in a certain niche of problems, with a
certain type of programmer.  If a programmer thinks Forth can solve
their problem, great.  If they think it can't solve their problem and
they lose interest, I don't see an issue.  I can understand that there's
some impatience with the view that Forth is the answer to everything.
There is no single answer to everything.  Lisp isn't the answer to
everything either.  The solution is to just be realistic about one's
claims.

Do you know the "Blub paradox"?  It's been mentioned here a few times;
you can find it quickly with a web search.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15519 — Re: Forth as a polarising language

FromBernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de>
Date2012-09-08 01:53 +0200
SubjectRe: Forth as a polarising language
Message-ID<42098575.CBZ8BYJVEi@sunwukong.fritz.box>
In reply to#15518
Paul Rubin wrote:
> For the now-wide class
> of problems where you have plenty of machine resources and don't care
> about occasional processing pauses, Forth's advantage becomes harder
> to demonstrate.

You could say so, but the now wide class of problems aren't desktop or 
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...).

And all the sudden, slow, lagging programs aren't that tolerable as they 
used to be on PCs... when they lag 10 times more...

IMHO the mantra "we don't need performance, our machines are fast 
enough" is from the desktop era.  Our desktop PCs have been bought and 
developed as gamer machines, and therefore are more than powerful for 
everything else.  But our phones haven't, and the servers in Googles or 
Facebooks server farm need to be efficient, too (because they need an 
awful lot of them, and having less makes their business more 
profitable).

Not everything in a system needs to be ultra-efficient.  Games like 
Angry Birds are not even real-time, so doing them in Lua is fine.  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, e.g. resource usage and 
performance doesn't seem to matter that much.

> Do you know the "Blub paradox"?  It's been mentioned here a few times;
> you can find it quickly with a web search.

I'd say that anyone who claims there is a partial order is suffering 
from the Blub paradox.  He sees his language as superior over the 
others, which have two classes: Inferior and weird languges.  The 
inferior languages lack features his language has, while the weird 
languages are just weird.  That the "inferior languages" might have 
features his language lacks, is also hidden by the Blub paradox.  Maybe 
he's even aware of these features, and dismisses them as "not 
important".

We had this discussion here with strong typed languages vs. Forth.  For 
me, strong typed languages get into my way of programming.  I understand 
that programming is "do what I say", and don't mind that the computer 
doesn't know what I mean - so the semantic gap between my ideas and my 
implementation can be quite large.  So essentially, that's a feature I 
know, but I dismiss as unimportant.  The errors I'm making in my 
programs, which I would say are type errors (not in the sense of Coq, 
but certainly in the sense of Haskell) are not something I struggle 
with.  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.  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 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.

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, and nothing but weird 
for everybody else.  And the fact is that most of them are rather 
rudimentary, even though the authors don't want to acknowledge.

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://bernd-paysan.de/

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15520 — Re: Forth as a polarising language

FromPaul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Date2012-09-07 18:22 -0700
SubjectRe: Forth as a polarising language
Message-ID<7xzk5148ba.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>
In reply to#15519
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.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15538 — Re: Forth as a polarising language

FromBernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de>
Date2012-09-09 00:08 +0200
SubjectRe: Forth as a polarising language
Message-ID<9166513.gd9qQuK4mJ@sunwukong.fritz.box>
In reply to#15520
Paul Rubin wrote:
> 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.

Yes, we do have recurrent discussions ;-).

> UI lagginess is a rather separate issue caused by problems like too
> much abstraction.

By too much code bloat and not caring about UI performance at all.  In 
the Blub sense of things: It is something these people don't even 
comprehend that it could be done differently.  These people apparently 
have never seen a non-lagging UI.

Google says on Jelly Bean, they've put Android under a microscope... to 
remove UI lags.  I'd suggest to remove the welder's spectacles, it would 
be more helpful.

>> 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 ;-).

Facebook needs to burn 100 billion dollars quickly ;-).

> 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".

No, you get that wrong.  Let's say you are a wood sculpturer.  You go to 
a shop who offers you the newest copy milling machine ("copy a 
professional sculpture in a day"), where you just enter a 3D model or 
allow it to scan an existing sculpture and copy it, or you can get a 
chainsaw ("create a professional sculpture in a day - given that you 
know what you do").  The chainsaw is Forth.  It can cut away whatever 
you want from your wood in a very short time, it is robust, but can 
cause fatal damages when handled incorrectly, and it does not impose you 
any sorts of restrictions.

AFAIK, the big majority of wood sculpturers in south Tirol prefer the 
CNC machine, and create the same sculptures their ancestors have been 
doing for ages.  But the creative ones all go with chainsaws, and create 
completely new things.

No salesman would advertize the chainsaw as a miller which does half of 
the work.

>> 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?

I've used Scheme and Prolog, and dynamically typed GC'd languages don't 
get much into my way.  I don't consider dynamically typed languages as 
"strong typed", because they do try hard to figure out what the 
programmer wanted, and convert data automatically if possible.

I've actually started programming with Logo, which is a dynamically 
gyped, gc'd language.

> 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.

And you are sure that it is a bug?  All the time?

>> 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. 

So you mean it does get into your way for quite a long time... until you 
figured out which things not to do.  I think we spoke about motivation: 
People in general (BDSM doesn't count) prefer positive feedback.  When I 
started Forth, I quickly had written a small program that did work.  It 
wasn't sluggish as Logo, Forth compiled into fast programs and had fast 
turnaround times (and that was on an 8MHz machine, more than a 100 times 
slower than any smartphone you can get today).

> 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.

I had some looks at OCaml, and it indeed seems to be more easy to use.

> I get the impression Verilog is like C while VHDL is like Ada.  Ada
> is of course notoriously inflexible.

Yes, that are the two sources of inspirations for these two languages.

>> 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.

Does it?  The thing I was doing was a battery monitor.  In many Android 
phones, there is no hardware battery monitor, it's all done in the Unix 
domain.  The problem is:  You can't really do it there, it's no good.  
That's why anybody who cares about the quality of the battery monitor 
buys some standard part from Ti or Maxim, which implements it in about 
the same way I did it: On a tiny micro deeply embedded in some small 
device.

If you tear down an iPhone, you'll see that apart from its ARMs, it has 
a broadband chip with its own embedded micro, it has a touchscreen chip 
with its own embedded micro (I've done a touch screen devices some years 
ago, it *is* essential), it has a battery monitor with its own embedded 
micro, and the same for bluetooth, Wifi, and NFC (the next probably 
comes with NFC).  The only larger chip without embedded micro is the 
power management circuit from Dialog, and it has no micro for mere 
stupidity.  It should have one (and when they continued what I had 
started with, it will actually end up with one).

That's not because it is fun to add another embedded micro.  That's 
because doing it on the ARM is just wrong.  And the people know, because 
sometimes they have tried, and failed, and that's why they are asking 
their customers to put the intelligence somewhere else.

The price budget for a battery monitor of course is more in the 30¢ 
region or even below.  Forget about your $3 ARM.  You simply can't 
afford it.  You also can't keep the price constant: The competition went 
down with the price.  What now?  Do the same, or die.  They put their 
own ultra-low-power smallest-size micros into their products, so you 
have to compete on that ground.

> 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.

Yes, but I consider low-volume sales as "uninteresting niches".  Just 
like you seem to consider high-volume sales, where it pays off to spend 
some extra effort to get along with 0.01% of the power consumption or so 
as "uninteresting niches".

I feel fairly comfortable programming such a small device in Forth.  
Remember: the small device is inevitable for doing the job, it has to be 
programmed one way or the other.  The other ways are simply way harder 
or they consume too many resources (Ti apparently uses an MSP430 in 
their battery monitor, and they write the program in C.  It's more than 
16k long as resoult, which means the chip exceeds the 30¢ budget).  It's 
like carving your wood with a chisel.  Yes, it works.  But if you ever 
used a chainsaw once, you will never ever use a chisel for carving a 
sculpture again.  Maybe for some fine-tuning at the end.

>> 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.

But he still uses his own keyboard layout.

Forth is indeed about reinventing the wheel (this time out of carbon 
with three spokes and an insane low weight requirement - we don't 
reinvent the roundness of the wheel, it's just Java's java.lang.wheel is 
a caterpillar's wheel and you can't win the Tour de France using that).  
As a consequence, it doesn't come with that many libraries.  If I need a 
library to read pngs, I just take C's libpng.  The process to convert 
the bindings now is fairly automated, thanks to Swig and Gerald Wodny.

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://bernd-paysan.de/

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


#15545 — Re: Forth as a polarising language

FromPaul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Date2012-09-08 17:34 -0700
SubjectRe: Forth as a polarising language
Message-ID<7xzk50m3uf.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>
In reply to#15538
Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> writes:
> By too much code bloat and not caring about UI performance at all.  In 
> the Blub sense of things: It is something these people don't even 
> comprehend that it could be done differently.  These people apparently 
> have never seen a non-lagging UI.

I've never understood what is going on with those UI's.  Part of the
problem may stem from the tragedy of X windows.  But I'm sure that those
developers have played video games, and what are video games other than
no-lag GUI's?  I have a secret plan for world domination if I ever find
myself running desktop GUI projects.  The secret plan is "hire game
programmers".  They know how to write stuff that doesn't lag.  The bad
news is they mostly use C++ these days ;-).

> AFAIK, the big majority of wood sculpturers in south Tirol prefer the 
> CNC machine, and create the same sculptures their ancestors have been 
> doing for ages.  But the creative ones all go with chainsaws, and create 
> completely new things.

Meh, I think the rage these days is 3D printing.  I don't know about
wood carving but I know some people making metal stuff, and except for
very simple parts turned on a lathe, everyone uses CNC or printing now,
even for one-off pieces.  Take a look at www.bathsheba.com and tell me
how to make stuff like that with hand tools or chainsaws.

> I don't consider dynamically typed languages as "strong typed",

That is a terminology thing--there doesn't seem to be a clear
uniform definition of that term.  Luca Cardelli's view is that
dynamic types are strong in the sense that they prevent type errors from
launching the program into undefined behavior.  I would surely say that
Scheme is a safer language than C or Forth for this reason.

> because they do try hard to figure out what the programmer wanted, and
> convert data automatically if possible.

I don't think automatic conversion is characteristic of dynamic types.
It seems pretty horrendous to me that PHP converts digit strings to
numbers if you do arithmetic on them.  Scheme and Python raise errors if
you do that.

>> departing from the style usually results in a bug.
> And you are sure that it is a bug?  All the time?

Of course not all the time.  The exceptions are unusual enough that it's
fine to handle them specially, e.g. by adding an annotation or creating
a type class, or using a dynamically-typed value if necessary.  Haskell
has a library called Data.Dynamic for that purpose, but it's rarely
used.  One place I remember it's used is in the Haskell-Erlang gateway,
which requires receiving arbitrary typed values over a network port.

>> With Haskell, it takes a while to use the type system to your advantage. 
> So you mean it does get into your way for quite a long time... until you 
> figured out which things not to do.  I think we spoke about motivation: 
> People in general (BDSM doesn't count) prefer positive feedback. 

It's just like a musical instrument, where when you first start playing
all you can get is awful noise.  People get good with those instruments
anyway.

> It wasn't sluggish as Logo, Forth compiled into fast programs
> and had fast turnaround times (and that was on an 8MHz machine, more
> than a 100 times slower than any smartphone you can get today).

Yeah, interactive shells are a big help for quick prototyping.  I
somewhat regret that I never used any of the grand Lisp environments
(i.e. the MIT Lisp machines) back in the era when anybody cared about
them.  Python has some nice interactive shells and I do use those.
Paradoxically the current prescription for "serious" Python programming
is test-driven development (TDD): you are supposed to write a test suite
for the code before you write the code itself.  So that seems like a
beat-back against interactive, exploratory development.  If those tests
have a 50% hassle factor and a type system gets rid of half of it while
adding 5% of its own, you're at 30%, which is an improvement over 50%.
The experience is really quite different from that, though--it's more
qualitative.

>> Yeah, that type of programming still exists, but it's a very
>> specialized niche by now ...  Phones have megabytes, not kilobytes.

> The thing I was doing was a battery monitor... On a tiny micro deeply
> embedded in some small device.

Sure, that's an important thing to be doing, but it's a niche; and sure,
it's a reasonable place for Forth, but it could also be programmed
directly in assembly code.

> The only larger chip without embedded micro is the power management
> circuit from Dialog, and it has no micro for mere stupidity.

I wonder if it's actually there but inaccessible?

> The price budget for a battery monitor of course is more in the 30¢ 
> region or even below.  Forget about your $3 ARM. 

In a high volume device like a phone, I'm surprised the battery monitor
isn't jammed into a corner of some multi-function ASIC rather than
being a separate part.

> Yes, but I consider low-volume sales as "uninteresting niches".  Just 
> like you seem to consider high-volume sales, where it pays off to spend 
> some extra effort to get along with 0.01% of the power consumption or so 
> as "uninteresting niches".

I don't think such niches are uninteresting.  There just aren't all that
many progammers (compared to the general programmer population) working
in them.  That's what makes them niches.

> (Ti apparently uses an MSP430 in their battery monitor, and they write
> the program in C.  It's more than 16k long as resoult, which means the
> chip exceeds the 30¢ budget).

I don't understand why the code bloat.  Are you comparing against your
B16 processor?  Are you really saying there's an 8x difference in code
density for B16 Forth vs. MSP430 C when the applications are doing the
same things?  I'm pretty doubtful there is that big a difference, and I
suspect that either the MSP430 code is using libraries carelessly, or
else it's doing fancier stuff than the B16 code.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]


Page 3 of 7 — ← Prev page 1 2 [3] 4 5 6 7  Next page →

Back to top | Article view | comp.lang.forth


csiph-web