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What's so great about Forth, anyway?

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  What's so great about Forth, anyway? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-03-14 13:07 -0500
    Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-03-14 11:54 -0700
      Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-14 15:53 -0400
      Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-03-14 19:24 -0700
      Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2017-03-15 10:00 +0000
        Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-15 12:57 -0400
          Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-03-15 11:09 -0700
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-03-16 04:05 -0500
          Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2017-03-16 09:41 +0000
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-03-16 10:57 -0700
              Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-03-16 14:41 -0400
        Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-03-15 11:34 -0700
        Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2017-03-22 03:24 -0700
          Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-03-22 11:24 -1000
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2017-03-23 14:51 -0700
          Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-03-23 04:25 -0500
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2017-03-23 14:58 -0700
              Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-03-24 03:03 -0500
                Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2017-03-24 04:52 -0700
                  Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2017-03-24 09:06 -0500
          Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-03-23 07:47 -0700
          Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2017-03-25 17:13 +0000
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2017-03-28 13:48 -0700
          Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Brad Eckert <hwfwguy@gmail.com> - 2017-03-28 18:34 -0700
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-03-28 18:52 -0700
              Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2017-03-29 11:53 +0000
                Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-03-29 15:09 +0300
                  Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2017-03-29 13:58 +0000
                    Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-03-29 17:24 +0300
                  Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? The Beez <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2017-04-04 03:04 -0700
                    Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2017-04-04 15:30 +0300
                      Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? The Beez <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2017-04-06 05:36 -0700
                    Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2017-04-04 16:35 +0000
                      Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2017-04-05 11:46 -0700
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2017-03-28 16:12 -1000
              Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2017-03-29 11:59 +0000
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2017-03-29 10:24 +0000
            Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2017-04-04 04:05 -0700
        Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? gavino himself <jackvanc3@gmail.com> - 2017-03-22 13:18 -0700
    Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? NN <november.nihal@gmail.com> - 2017-03-14 12:20 -0700
    Re: What's so great about Forth, anyway? gavino himself <jackvanc3@gmail.com> - 2017-04-02 19:52 -0700
    Nothing's great about Forth "Robert L." <No_spamming@noWhere_7073.org> - 2017-04-04 10:45 +0000
      Re: Nothing's great about Forth Julian Fondren <julian.fondren@gmail.com> - 2017-04-04 08:00 -0700
      Re: Nothing's great about Forth lehs <skydda.barnen@gmail.com> - 2017-04-04 08:16 -0700
      Re: Nothing's great about Forth Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2017-04-04 09:11 -0700
      Re: Nothing's great about Forth Ilya Tarasov <ilya74.tarasov@gmail.com> - 2017-04-06 06:42 -0700

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#56624

On Tuesday, March 14, 2017 at 2:08:00 PM UTC-4, Andrew Haley wrote:
> Every now and then the question "What's good about Forth, anyway?"
> comes up.  I found this at http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html, and
> it rang some bells:
> 
>   The dream language is beautiful, clean, and terse. It has an
>   interactive toplevel that starts up fast. You can write programs to
>   solve common problems with very little code. Nearly all the code in
>   any program you write is code that's specific to your
>   application. Everything else has been done for you.
>   
>   The syntax of the language is brief to a fault. You never have to
>   type an unnecessary character, or even to use the shift key much.
>   
>   Using big abstractions you can write the first version of a program
>   very quickly. Later, when you want to optimize, there's a really
>   good profiler that tells you where to focus your attention. You can
>   make inner loops blindingly fast, even writing inline byte code if
>   you need to.
>   
>   There are lots of good examples to learn from, and the language is
>   intuitive enough that you can learn how to use it from examples in a
>   couple minutes. You don't need to look in the manual much. The
>   manual is thin, and has few warnings and qualifications.
>   
>   The language has a small core, and powerful, highly orthogonal
>   libraries that are as carefully designed as the core language. The
>   libraries all work well together; everything in the language fits
>   together like the parts in a fine camera. Nothing is deprecated, or
>   retained for compatibility. The source code of all the libraries is
>   readily available. It's easy to talk to the operating system and to
>   applications written in other languages.
>   
>   The language is built in layers. The higher-level abstractions are
>   built in a very transparent way out of lower-level abstractions,
>   which you can get hold of if you want.
>   
>   Nothing is hidden from you that doesn't absolutely have to be. The
>   language offers abstractions only as a way of saving you work,
>   rather than as a way of telling you what to do. In fact, the
>   language encourages you to be an equal participant in its
>   design. You can change everything about it, including even its
>   syntax, and anything you write has, as much as possible, the same
>   status as what comes predefined.
> 
> So where does Forth sit?  I'm not sure that it's intuitive enough to
> learn in a few minutes, and many simple coding errors errors result in
> obscure crashes.  Forth has never been big on big abstractions, and
> the idea that "everything else has been done for you" is very far from
> true.  We're still very short of libraries, and that this rate
> probably always will be.  I've not seen tools like profilers.
> 
> But Forth ticks some of the other boxes, I think.  The idea that "you
> can change everything, and anything you write has the same status as
> what comes predefined" certainly rings true.  Beautiful, clean, and
> terse might be a bit controverisal, but good Forth is definitely
> terse.
> 
> "Nothing is deprecated, or retained for compatibility" is more Chuck
> Moore than Standard Forth, for sure.
> 
> Andrew.

makes me want to learn forth

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#56691 — Nothing's great about Forth

On 3/14/2017, Andrew Haley wrote:

Nothing's great about Forth

> I found this at http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html


Graham was writing about Lispy languages, not about the
ultra low-level and clunky language called Forth.


>                                 You can write programs to
>   solve common problems with very little code.

Forth fails.

>                                Nearly all the code in
>   any program you write is code that's specific to your
>   application. Everything else has been done for you.

Forth fails.


>   Using big abstractions you can write the first version of a program
>   very quickly. Later, when you want to optimize, there's a really
>   good profiler that tells you where to focus your attention.

Forth fails.


>   There are lots of good examples to learn from, and the language is
>   intuitive enough that you can learn how to use it from examples in a
>   couple minutes. You don't need to look in the manual much. The
>   manual is thin, and has few warnings and qualifications.

Forth fails.


>   The language has a small core, and powerful, highly orthogonal
>   libraries that are as carefully designed as the core language. The
>   libraries all work well together; everything in the language fits
>   together like the parts in a fine camera. Nothing is deprecated, or
>   retained for compatibility. The source code of all the libraries is
>   readily available. It's easy to talk to the operating system and to
>   applications written in other languages.

Forth fails.


Forth lacks:

string-handling functions
a regular-expression engine
arrays
lists
associative arrays (hash-tables)
structures (records)
tuples
closures
a sort command
pattern-matching
etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., ... 

Forth is not at a much higher level than assembly language.

Forth is only for those whose minds cannot comprehend
high-level languages.

Gavotte finds it awe-inspiring.
 

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#56709 — Re: Nothing's great about Forth

On Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at 5:45:48 AM UTC-5, Robert L. wrote:
> Forth lacks:
> 
> string-handling functions
> a regular-expression engine
> arrays
> lists
> associative arrays (hash-tables)
> structures (records)
> tuples
> closures
> a sort command
> pattern-matching
> etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., ... 

You have 2mm slippers.
Friend A has 3 inch heels.
Friend B has one-foot platform shoes.

Q: How high do you want to go?

WJ (happy in his heels): THREE INCHES UP

An idiot, using Forth: let's start with the moon.

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#56710 — Re: Nothing's great about Forth

Den tisdag 4 april 2017 kl. 12:45:48 UTC+2 skrev Robert L.:
> On 3/14/2017, Andrew Haley wrote:
> 
> Nothing's great about Forth
> 
> > I found this at http://www.paulgraham.com/popular.html
> 
> 
> Graham was writing about Lispy languages, not about the
> ultra low-level and clunky language called Forth.
> 
> 
> >                                 You can write programs to
> >   solve common problems with very little code.
> 
> Forth fails.
> 
> >                                Nearly all the code in
> >   any program you write is code that's specific to your
> >   application. Everything else has been done for you.
> 
> Forth fails.
> 
> 
> >   Using big abstractions you can write the first version of a program
> >   very quickly. Later, when you want to optimize, there's a really
> >   good profiler that tells you where to focus your attention.
> 
> Forth fails.
> 
> 
> >   There are lots of good examples to learn from, and the language is
> >   intuitive enough that you can learn how to use it from examples in a
> >   couple minutes. You don't need to look in the manual much. The
> >   manual is thin, and has few warnings and qualifications.
> 
> Forth fails.
> 
> 
> >   The language has a small core, and powerful, highly orthogonal
> >   libraries that are as carefully designed as the core language. The
> >   libraries all work well together; everything in the language fits
> >   together like the parts in a fine camera. Nothing is deprecated, or
> >   retained for compatibility. The source code of all the libraries is
> >   readily available. It's easy to talk to the operating system and to
> >   applications written in other languages.
> 
> Forth fails.
> 
> 
> Forth lacks:
> 
> string-handling functions
> a regular-expression engine
> arrays
> lists
> associative arrays (hash-tables)
> structures (records)
> tuples
> closures
> a sort command
> pattern-matching
> etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., ... 
> 
> Forth is not at a much higher level than assembly language.
> 
> Forth is only for those whose minds cannot comprehend
> high-level languages.
> 
> Gavotte finds it awe-inspiring.

Forth is a low level language and it doesn't lack anything that can easily be done in Forth. It lacks a standard for a lot of extensions and it lacks great libraries compared to other languages. Mostly because Forth is an outsider, not used by millions of active users and a majority of the companies.

Your list is ridiculous in the sense that even newbies can do the extensions.

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#56716 — Re: Nothing's great about Forth

On Tuesday, 4 April 2017 11:45:48 UTC+1, Robert L.  wrote:
> Forth is not at a much higher level than assembly language.

At last you get it. Now if you could do us all a massive favour and
f**k off that'd be great.

See ya.

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#56784 — Re: Nothing's great about Forth

вторник, 4 апреля 2017 г., 13:45:48 UTC+3 пользователь Robert L. написал:
> On 3/14/2017, Andrew Haley wrote:
> 
> >                                 You can write programs to
> >   solve common problems with very little code.
> 
> Forth fails.

Depends on the definition of 'common problem'. With no libraries to  #include, C programmer has less chances to write at least something than Forth programmer.
 
> >                                Nearly all the code in
> >   any program you write is code that's specific to your
> >   application. Everything else has been done for you.
> 
> Forth fails.
 
No, Forth one of the best language for create domain-specific languages. After a short period of writing tools, almost all code becomes application-specific.
 
> >   Using big abstractions you can write the first version of a program
> >   very quickly. Later, when you want to optimize, there's a really
> >   good profiler that tells you where to focus your attention.
> 
> Forth fails.

Forth cannot drag&drop components and has a lack of debuggers with GUI. It is a different approach to coding, hovewer.

> >   There are lots of good examples to learn from, and the language is
> >   intuitive enough that you can learn how to use it from examples in a
> >   couple minutes. You don't need to look in the manual much. The
> >   manual is thin, and has few warnings and qualifications.
> 
> Forth fails.
 
This is a question to ANS committee, indeed :) They are tries to keep standard as complex as possible, even repeating "nobody can force you to use standard". Indeed, this is not so helpful. Having a complete user guid and developer guide, life will be easy. A programmer will be able to choose, use standard solution, use some other os create his own implementation (with clearly stated goals, of course). In this case, Forth Inc may be just the best team who can create a very good Forth, acceptable for most programmers.. if they are not too scary to allow others to play at their grounds.
 
> >   The language has a small core, and powerful, highly orthogonal
> >   libraries that are as carefully designed as the core language. The
> >   libraries all work well together; everything in the language fits
> >   together like the parts in a fine camera. Nothing is deprecated, or
> >   retained for compatibility. The source code of all the libraries is
> >   readily available. It's easy to talk to the operating system and to
> >   applications written in other languages.
> 
> Forth fails.

Again, questions to ANS committee. When a skilled programmer starts to write his implementation, he usually drops all of this ANS-junk to trash. It is not too hard to write a simple translator, and many programmers can do it separately. An important task is to bring them together, while not dictating how they must name each word.
 
> Forth lacks:
> 
> string-handling functions
> a regular-expression engine
> arrays
> lists
> associative arrays (hash-tables)
> structures (records)
> tuples
> closures
> a sort command
> pattern-matching
> etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., ... 

Many of this is just a particulary solution, targeting certain application domains. Other are free to implement.
 
> Forth is not at a much higher level than assembly language.

Yes.
 
> Forth is only for those whose minds cannot comprehend
> high-level languages.

But if someone can use high-level language, but likes Forth as well? :)

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