Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 14:17:35 -0400 From: "Christopher G. Petrilli" <petrilli@amber.org> To: FreeBSD Small <freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Command-line i/f (Re: PicoBSD) Message-ID: <19981005141735.53074@amber.org> In-Reply-To: <199810051532.LAA10779@jhicks.glenatl.glenayre.com>; from Jerry Hicks on Mon, Oct 05, 1998 at 11:32:42AM -0400 References: <199810032345.TAA21910@whizzo.transsys.com> <199810051532.LAA10779@jhicks.glenatl.glenayre.com>
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On Mon, Oct 05, 1998 at 11:32:42AM -0400, Jerry Hicks wrote: > > [snip: various arguments] > > 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. This is really not a valid argument. Quite a few mortals know x86 assembler, but that hardly makes it attractive <wink> I think the reality is that RPN is totally foreign to most people, at least those who don't keep a traditional HP calculator by their sides. > Anyone who used WordPerfect or bootstraps a late model Sun also qualifies as a > user of a Forth system. Regardless, user is one thing, coder is a totally seperate thing. > > 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. This is a bonus in so much as it presumes that it's needed. > We can't do that with TCL. > 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. Thiss is NOT why you do things, this is a poor excuse. Heck, then we should use perl! <0.5 wink> > 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. Have we really even yet determined that any such solution is needed, or in fact are we trying to find a hammer to a nail that is only in the imagination of those among us? I would appreciate CLEAR CONCISE descriptions of REAL-WORLD problems that this would solve, not some hyperbole about how it would make thus and such possi ble, which presumes that anyone in their right midn would WANT it. Remember, PicoBSD is designed to be small and simple, choosing obtuse (for most people) languages as extension sets is just plain SILLY. BTW, this is no flame, I used to write Forht code. Chris -- | Christopher Petrilli | petrilli@amber.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-small" in the body of the message
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