From owner-freebsd-small Mon Oct 5 08:43:33 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id IAA25929 for freebsd-small-outgoing; Mon, 5 Oct 1998 08:43:33 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from rachel (mail.glenatl.glenayre.com [157.230.160.51]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id IAA25836 for ; Mon, 5 Oct 1998 08:42:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jhicks@glenatl.glenayre.com) Received: from jhicks.glenatl.glenayre.com by rachel (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4) id LAA21143; Mon, 5 Oct 1998 11:32:53 -0400 Received: from jhicks.glenatl.glenayre.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by jhicks.glenatl.glenayre.com (8.8.8/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA10779; Mon, 5 Oct 1998 11:32:42 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199810051532.LAA10779@jhicks.glenatl.glenayre.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: "Louis A. Mamakos" cc: Andrzej Bialecki , Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai , Jerry Hicks , FreeBSD Small Subject: Re: Command-line i/f (Re: PicoBSD) In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 03 Oct 1998 19:45:30 EDT." <199810032345.TAA21910@whizzo.transsys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 11:32:42 -0400 From: Jerry Hicks Sender: owner-freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > > Again, I fully agree with you - that's also my intention. And I see a > > Forth -based shell as a means to accomplish it - to glue all these > > elements together, at the same time giving it flexibility and programming > > abilities far beyond those of /bin/sh. > > I can certainly see how having an extensible shell would be a very > attractive thing. But if you expect mere mortals to be able to > run (and extend) the thing, I think a FORTH-based approach is doomed > to fail (again). Not necessarily... Quite a few mortals know how to code Forth. I have enjoyed a fair amount of success over the years introducing Forth to new programmers. Anyone who used WordPerfect or bootstraps a late model Sun also qualifies as a user of a Forth system. > Why wouldn't something based on TCL be a better choice? Sysadmins are > probably more likely to be familiar with it (perhaps due to experience > with "expect"). It has a pretty reasonable syntax, and perhaps > a more familair procedural type model. I can see getting a complete Forth onto the PicoBSD floppy within 8K or so. We can't do that with TCL. Forth is considered a procedural language, although there are some implementations which offer expert systems and object-oriented support. I'll bet we will find a new set of FreeBSD aficionados created when some implementation gets released. See comp.lang.forth for lively discussion. Forth is very much alive and kicking. When one is seeking a minimalist solution, I can't think of a better alternative to assembly code. Cheers, Jerry Hicks jerry.hicks@glenayre.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message