Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 SMI; site sun.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!decwrl!sun!wmb From: wmb@sun.uucp (Mitch Bradley) Newsgroups: net.jokes,net.lang.forth Subject: Re: Forth from the Stone Age? Message-ID: <1885@sun.uucp> Date: Sun, 16-Dec-84 21:04:02 EST Article-I.D.: sun.1885 Posted: Sun Dec 16 21:04:02 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 18-Dec-84 02:21:57 EST References: <45@mot.UUCP> <6810@watdaisy.UUCP> <1807@umcp-cs.UUCP> <6819@watdaisy.UUCP> Reply-To: wmb@sun.UUCP (Mitch Bradley) Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. Lines: 26 Xref: watmath net.jokes:9963 net.lang.forth:189 > Why will no-one consider the possibility of using 10-year-old hardware -- > they always insist on using the latest, 5-year-old hardware -- but they are > perfectly happy using languages that are 20 years old? I don't want to cause a big argument about this, but I do want to voice a contrary opinion. Personally, I like Forth, and frequently chose to use it in preference to C. And please, don't think I don't know C well enough; I used C extensively for 3 years *before* I learned Forth, and vigorously promoted the use of C at the company I worked at before Sun. Forth is interactive and extensible, two features that I like very much, and which are lacking from C. I find that I can write and debug non-trivial programs much faster in Forth than in C, precisely because it is interactive. I don't like the Forth "screen" concept (source code is usually kept in 16 line x 64 column format), so I edit my source code in normal Unix files with Emacs. As a point of information, Forth is not 20 years old. It was developed about the same time as C. Lisp, however, is 20 years old, and it is actively being used as the language of choice by much of the AI community, who like to think of themselves as the cutting edge of computer science. So, I would claim that newer is not necessarily better, regardless of the fact the Forth isn't old anyway. Cheers, Mitch Bradley (honk, honk)