Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!cernvax!hjm
From: hjm@cernvax.UUCP (hjm)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Forth "Pre-Compiler" (long)
Message-ID: <798@cernvax.UUCP>
Date: 16 Aug 88 15:54:51 GMT
References: <8808032106.AA01436@jade.berkeley.edu> <1563@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <2651@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1567@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk>
Reply-To: hjm@cernvax.UUCP ()
Organization: CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics, CH-1211 Geneva, Switzerland
Lines: 26


OK, Laxen & Perry = 8, Orr = 53.

Mr. Orr, are you sure more is better?  You  assume  that  because
you  need  53  tools to program in C, then others must require 53
tools to program in X, Y or FORTH.  If these tools were necessary
for  FORTH  programming, do you not think that someone would have
written them?

To me, the most important idea in  computing  is  Occam's  Razor:
keep  it  as  simple as possible.  I loath the inflated operating
systems of the world, just as much as I  detest  the  unnecessary
complication  that  most  of the computing world revels in.  If 8
tools do all that is needed in 26KB, then great!  That's (12 Mb -
26 Kb) *less* code that has to be written.  Less code means writ-
ten quicker, which means cheaper systems for  me  to  play  with.
How  much do you pay for your compiler/support tools/windows/cute
menus and the like?  A lot.  UNIX, VMS, MVS and  the  like?   Too
big, too expensive, too inflexible.  And how many latent bugs are
there in that 12 Mb of code?

Small = fast = cheap = efficient = flexible = intelligible =  us-
able = provable = less bug ridden = more maintainable = ... (need
I say more?)

        Hubert Matthews