Re: advantages of forth over other languages

Nils-Arne Dahlberg wrote:
> Elizabeth D Rather <eratherXXX@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>> John Doty wrote:
>>> John Passaniti wrote:
>>>> John Doty wrote:
>>>>> Was Forth ever widely understood by programmers? Most Forthers I've 
>>>>> actually known have been scientists or engineers.
>>>> That old theme again.  You must come from that generation where
people 
>>>> were specialists and stayed in their narrowly-defined roles for their

>>>> entire career.  I'm glad I don't, and I'm glad the vast majority of 
>>>> the people I work with don't.  Maybe in your industry people are 
>>>> strictly defined by "programmer" and "scientist" and "engineer."  But

>>>> most people I know are hyphenated-- they may primarily be a
scientist, 
>>>> but they also have strong programming skills.  Or they might be an 
>>>> electrical engineer, but also be conversant in the world of 
>>>> programming.  I started the other way, starting off as a programmer 
>>>> and moving more towards electrical engineering.
>>> Most programmers I've known just do programming. But lots of others do

>>> programming.
>>>
>>>> But this is nothing new-- we've talked about this before, and I've 
>>>> been deeply thankful that the kind of regimented professional roles 
>>>> you seem to observe in your work don't apply universally.
>>> You misunderstand what I'm trying to say. To me, a "programmer" is a 
>>> narrow specialist by choice. It's like being a writer. But lots of 
>>> people write without being "writers", and lots of people program
without 
>>> being "programmers". Forth was once the language for those.
>> I believe you use the term "programmer" rather differently from the way

>> John and I and most others here do.  Certainly my experience is the
same 
>> as John's: most of our customers (and, indeed, our staff as well) are 
>> people with significant expertise in other fields (typically various 
>> fields of science and engineering, including related skills such as 
>> design of electronic components) who also do a lot of programming.  In 
>> fact, I don't know *any* programmers who are narrow specialists or
write 
>> software without understanding the application domain in which it will 
>> be used.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Elizabeth
> As I see it a programmer is an interpreter. He interpretes one
'language'
> (either another programming language or a thought given in mathematial
or
> tehnical terms) into the needed programming language.
> It is said that a good intepreter needs to have a good knowledge in the
> language from he interpretes and an even better knowledge in the
language
> into he interpretes.

That's my experience. I work a lot with the Japanese space program, and 
often going back and reading the original do***ents is better than 
working from the English translation, despite my poor command of 
Japanese. But because I know the subject matter, I pick up things the 
professional translators miss.

> This gives that you can't make a good program unless you have at least
> some understanding of the basic technology/mathematics of the algorithm.

More than just some: a lot.

> If you haven't the result will at best be as all these automaticly
> translated texts that you can find...

I was at community get-together a couple of days ago, and found myself 
next to somebody who employs web designers. He complained that while 
they are very good at making things look nice, they are clueless about 
how ordinary people actually perceive navigation through the web. And 
they don't know they're clueless, the vigorously deny it. Sounds 
familiar to me...


-- 
John Doty, Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
--
Specialization is for robots.