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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.jokes,net.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth from the Stone Age?
Message-ID: <1807@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 13-Dec-84 03:28:25 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1807
Posted: Thu Dec 13 03:28:25 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Dec-84 05:56:11 EST
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Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
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Xref: watmath net.jokes:9903 net.lang.forth:186

Norman Diamond writes:

>You forgot those of us who can't stand forth, and those of us who
>wonder why a new 50's language is invented in the 70's and still
>promoted in the 80's.  How do I anti-honk?

Well, well.  Just this past week a seminar group here was discussing some
language features and philosophy, and my, my, Forth was brought up as an
embodiment of principles some felt were desirable.  Features, I might add,
that are found in very few languages (such as COMPLETE control over data
types).

As the story has been told to me, I have no trouble understanding why Moore
created the language.  For an 8-bit micro, there simply were no civilized
languages with sufficient power (unless you think 8080 assembly is civilized
:-)); there are hardly any now.

I'll certainly agree that it is one of the most write-only languages since 
APL.  Nevertheless, it embodies principles which the ADA-ites and their
Design-the-Next-Great-Language kin have chosen to ignore.  I suspect that
the I/O package for most FORTRANs (dare I mention PL/I?) is considerably
larger than the Forth COMPILER would be on the same machine.

"Forth-- Stay to here is that language a"
[Now pop that off your stack]

Charley Wingate  umcp-cs!mangoe