Re: part 21 asserts forth best for small memory systems, would lisp

Guy Macon wrote:
> Elizabeth D Rather wrote:
> 
>> m-coughlin wrote:
>>> ...
>>> Programmers who write large Forth systems
>>> will not publish their code for others to use. Its MUCH more
>>> difficult to write Forth source for others to read than to just
>>> write it for yourself when you remember what all your Forth
>>> words do. The problem of knowing and remembering what other
>>> programmers have done is the crucial step. 
>> Programmers who write large Forth systems work in teams.  All
successful 
>> teams (using Forth or any language) develop strategies to maximize code

>> sharing, do***entation, and readability within the team.  Once you 
>> accept the concept of writing code for the team, it's certainly no 
>> harder to do in Forth than other language.  Forth has been used 
>> successfully in team programming projects for over 30 years.
> 
> In 1981-82 I worked at MSI Data Corp., and we had teams 
> working on large Forth systems wothout any sharing issues.

1. That was a looong time ago. A lot has changed since then. Forth has 
not evolved to thrive in the new ecology.

2. A team under a single cor****ate roof is not an open collaboration. 
It's closer to a single "hermit programmer".

3. By the standards of that time frame, Forth was also a team 
programming methodology in astronomy. But the alternatives got better 
and Forth stagnated.

Are those teams still using Forth?

> 
> You can write code that is not suitable for sharing in most languages.
> Here is an example in C:

Irrelevant. What matters is whether you can write code in Forth that is 
suitable for sharing with somebody you have never met in an unfamiliar 
technical culture implementing an application you can't imagine. Happens 
all the time in C and Python...


-- 
John Doty, Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.
http://www.noqsi.com/
--
History teaches that logical consistency is neither sufficient nor 
necessary to establish practical, real world truth. Those who attempt to 
use logic for that purpose are abusing it.