Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 05 Sep 2001 20:15:59 -0500
From:      Jim Bryant <kc5vdj@yahoo.com>
To:        obrien@freebsd.org
Cc:        Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, Samuel Tardieu <sam@inf.enst.fr>, Daniel Capo Sobral <dcs@tcoip.com.br>, Mike Smith <msmith@freebsd.org>, Kazutaka YOKOTA <yokota@zodiac.mech.utsunomiya-u.ac.jp>, dcs@freebsd.org, current@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: HEADS UP: ACPI CHANGES AFFECTING MOST -CURRENT USERS
Message-ID:  <3B96CE4F.2060900@yahoo.com>
References:  <200109032330.f83NU9n02241@mass.dis.org> <200109041248.f84CmOa21358@mail.tcoip.com.br> <20010905092840.B96880@dragon.nuxi.com> <2001-09-05-18-58-33%2Btrackit%2Bsam@inf.enst.fr> <3B967751.9DD98315@mindspring.com> <20010905121236.B1047@dragon.nuxi.com>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
David O'Brien wrote:

> On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 12:04:49PM -0700, Terry Lambert wrote:
> 
>>Samuel Tardieu wrote:
>>
>>>Or why is BSD make used when the vast majority of Free Software developpers
>>>use GNU make?
>>>
>>1)	It actually works
>>
> 
> You forgot the syntax is nearly the same as GNU Make.
> (or rather both accept nearly the same syntax as the original Bell Labs
> make(1)).
> 
> In the case of forth, the interpreter will accept nothing that looks even
> vaguely simular to C/C++, FORTRAN, bourne shell, awk, or perl.


FORTH is a pain in the ass, it's a bastardized and seldom-used language, but it does have one strong advantage in a boot-loader 
situation: it's tiny, and relatively easy to implement.

It's been a very long time since FORTRAN fit in 4k, I don't think C ever did, bourne relies too much on external programs 
[/bin/test, etc], awk is too limited, and using perl would be akin to using winblowz as a bootloader [bLOAt]....

I haven't used FORTH since my VIC-20 days, but if you can use an HP calculator, you can probably pick up the basics of FORTH over a 
weekend.  If you can do PostScript, then you can probably pick it up in an evening.


jim
-- 
     ET has one helluva sense of humor!
He's always anal-probing right-wing schizos!
--------------------------------------------
           POWER TO THE PEOPLE!


_________________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?3B96CE4F.2060900>