Re: Forth philosophy

From	rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: Forth philosophy
Date	2014-06-12 00:24 -0400
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<lnba2h$ecj$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	<d6a1ccca-1a5b-4fdf-be24-6ee6029d557c@googlegroups.com> <op.xhbcxxrw6zenlw@localhost> <0JCdneuVOuwhbgXOnZ2dnUVZ_oadnZ2d@supernews.com>

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On 6/11/2014 8:26 PM, Elizabeth D. Rather wrote:
> On 6/11/14 1:30 PM, Rod Pemberton wrote:
>>
>> In Forth, there is a benefit because Forth has no syntax errors or
>> compiler warnings.  There is nothing to tell you about incorrectness.
>> I.e., you can only detect errors in Forth by thoroughly testing every
>> bit of code you coded, which is easiest if they are small pieces.
>> There is nothing to warn you about boundary cases, integer overflow,
>> unused code, or the mis-use of an integer as an address.
>
> This is simply not true of any Forth I have ever worked on. It is
> certainly true that Forth has limited syntax and no enforcement of data
> types, but that doesn't mean there's no checking. Virtually every Forth
> will report stack underflow, which identifies a large number of errors
> (including incomplete structures), attempts to access non-existent
> memory, or undefined words, along with a variety of other
> easily-detectable faults.

Every time someone mentions detecting stack over/underflows I think of 
Jeff Fox.  Back when I was still struggling with why I should try to use 
Forth the lack of tools (in the context of the typical C methodology) 
was being discussed including stack error detection.  Jeff made the 
point that it wasn't needed as long as the programmer could count...  I 
think his words were something like, "Stack errors just mean that you 
can't count".  I'm not actually quoting him, I searched and could only 
find my posts para-phrasing him.  In fact I seem to do this on a regular 
basis, lol.

I thought about that one for a long time.  Like a typical Forth program, 
the sort you would see from Chuck himself, it was actually a very highly 
distilled statement of the nature of Forth debugging.  It was in a 
sense, a haiku on Forth programming, terse, yet full of meaning.

I miss Jeff.

>> Also, reducing everything to the simplest concept also interferes
>> with developing and testing of more complex ideas.  The ability to
>> grasp the entire problem or implementation at once can be obfuscated
>> by using small pieces.  It's much better to see the entire problem,
>> in one place, at once, not a whole bunch of jumbled little pieces
>> that have to be put together, correctly.
>
> Again, this is not my experience. I am not aware that Mr. Pemberton has
> ever worked on any substantial Forth applications (in addition to
> writing his own Forth, with some guidance here), or spent time learning
> Forth programming and debugging strategies. Although I am presently
> retired, I worked on major commercial Forth applications for over 30
> years, some of which continued in use for decades.

I agree.  Sometimes I wonder if Rod really believes the things he says 
or if he is just free associating and then working to defend his 
statement like playing a game of go.

-- 

Rick

Thread

Forth philosophy OneArb <o1neeno1@gmail.com> - 2014-06-10 13:23 -0700
  Re: Forth philosophy Roger Levy <roger.levy@gmail.com> - 2014-06-10 14:45 -0700
  Re: Forth philosophy Elizabeth D Rather <erather@forth.com> - 2014-06-10 12:51 -1000
    Re: Forth philosophy hughaguilar96@yahoo.com - 2014-06-10 16:14 -0700
  Re: Forth philosophy Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2014-06-11 10:03 +0100
    Re: Forth philosophy visualforth@rocketmail.com - 2014-06-11 11:11 -0700
      Re: Forth philosophy Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2014-06-11 21:57 +0100
  Re: Forth philosophy "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-06-11 19:30 -0400
    Re: Forth philosophy "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-06-11 14:26 -1000
      Re: Forth philosophy rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2014-06-12 00:24 -0400
        Re: Forth philosophy "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-06-11 18:58 -1000
          Re: Forth philosophy "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-06-12 07:33 -0400
            Re: Forth philosophy AKK <akk@nospam.org> - 2014-06-12 20:39 +0200
              Re: Forth philosophy "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-06-12 23:15 -0400
              Re: Forth philosophy anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-06-13 17:29 +0000
                Re: Forth philosophy AKK <akk@nospam.org> - 2014-06-14 12:26 +0200
                Re: Forth philosophy anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-06-14 10:59 +0000
                Re: Forth philosophy Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-06-14 07:39 -0500
                Optimizing C compilers vs. assembly language for Forth interpreters (was: Forth philosophy) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-06-14 14:40 +0000
                Re: Optimizing C compilers vs. assembly language for Forth interpreters Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-06-14 11:25 -0500
                Re: Optimizing C compilers vs. assembly language for Forth interpreters Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-06-15 23:55 +0200
                Re: Forth philosophy albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-06-14 19:45 +0000
                Re: Forth philosophy Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-06-15 13:18 -0500
                Re: Forth philosophy AKK <akk@nospam.org> - 2014-06-16 21:14 +0200
                Re: Forth philosophy Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-06-16 22:41 +0200
                Re: Forth philosophy AKK <akk@nospam.org> - 2014-06-17 13:32 +0200
                Re: Forth philosophy Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-06-17 15:02 +0200
                Re: Forth philosophy mhx@iae.nl - 2014-06-16 13:41 -0700
        Re: Forth philosophy "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-06-12 07:33 -0400
        Re: Forth philosophy barrym95838@yahoo.com - 2014-06-13 21:48 -0700
          Re: Forth philosophy "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-06-14 01:01 -0400
      Re: Forth philosophy Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-06-12 03:02 -0500
      Re: Forth philosophy albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-06-12 10:43 +0000
      Re: Forth philosophy "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-06-12 07:32 -0400

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