Re: advantages of forth over other languages

On Oct 3, 7:35 pm, John Passaniti <n...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Celime wrote:
> > Todays programmings languages are so distant from Forth that it
appears
> > impossible to me to explain the advantages of Forth to the young
> > programmers.
>
> So much of the discussion in comp.lang.forth is about Forth's
> advantages, but I rarely see anyone talking about Forth's disadvantages.
>   Could it be the "young programmers" you are talking to fully grok
> Forth's advantages, but they may see disadvantages that you don't?

Many of the seen disadvantages are the advantages someone else sees.

> Could it also be that you're assuming that advantages in one domain
> equates to advantages in another?  Forth is a great language for
> embedded systems.  That doesn't mean that Forth is necessarily a great
> language for web-based applications.

I seriously think that Forth needs to go away from that "only good for
embedded applications" image. Also in embedded world memory and
processor power gets cheaper and cheaper and the need for a small i.e.
Forth decreases with every month.

> Another question:  Many times in comp.lang.forth we see Forth compared
> to "other languages."  But in reality, there is rarely a comparison to
> "other languages."  Usually the comparison is with C, ignoring the much
> larger universe of languages out there.  And certainly, when comparing
> Forth and C, there are a number of advantages.  But when you start
> looking outside C, some of the features that were traditionally seen as
> unique in Forth are actually common.

But how common are these languages? And I fear you mean the "C" up to
C# or even Perl and such ;)

-Helmar