John Doty <jpd@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> What weakness in Forth restricts it to these situations?
When I came back it looked like nothing had changed between you and the
rest of clf.
You tell us that there's something wrong with Forth, and others disagree
with you. You present evidence that there's something wrong with Forth
and others present evidence that there isn't. Where will this get us? If
you were to convince me that there's something fundamentally wrong with
Forth my response would probably be not to help you change Forth around
into something new that was OK, but to switch to an established language
that didn't have those flaws. Presumably Python, Ruby, Lua, or something
like that. What do you hope to accomplish?
I remember back in the old days we used to have the occasional C
programmer who'd drop by and tell us that Forth was no good. He'd say
that all of Forth's strengths were things that good programmers didn't
need, and Forth's weaknesses were things that only the best programmers
could overcome. He'd troll for awhile and then leave, and come back and
tell us that Forth was no good and leave again. Those guys are gone. I
guess by now they feel so sure they're right that they don't need to
argue it any more. Maybe they stop by the Ruby newsgroup and tell them
that Ruby programmers aren't actually doing real programming but are
only script kiddies. And the void they left behind is being partly
filled by you and John Passaniti.
You both say that you like Forth, in its place. You both think Forth
ought to have a better future than its present. Forth would be more
successful if only the Forth community would listen to you and do what
you say. It's the way the current Forth community does things that's
keeping Forth down. if only we'd stop doing what we want to do and
instead do what you want us to do, then more people would join us.
Sometimes I've doubted your sincerity. If you meant it, why would you be
so self-defeating? Obviously the way to get the result you say you want
is to start doing it, and you get people to join you who come to share
the vision. They show up from wherever they show up. Other things equal
99.9% of them would show up from outside the Forth community, because
that's where most of the candidates are. And the more they get inspired
by seeing the results they get, the more they work at it and the more
they proselytise. It shouldn't take long before the traditional Forth
community is dwarfed by your group, and it doesn't matter what we think
-- we're mostly irrelevant. We can join you or keep fiddling around, and
it doesn't much matter. Paul did that with christianity. He didn't
settle for persuading the jews or the jewish christians, he converted so
many heathen that the others were intimidated.
But I don't really think you're trolling on purpose. I think you somehow
believe that comp.lang.forth is the group of people you need to convince
so that Forth can become what it ought to be. And you're ready to keep
arguing as long as it takes to get us to see that what we're doing is
all wrong, so we'll be open to alternatives. It sounds stupid but it's
something that people actually do a lot.
Sometimes it seems like I do that myself.
Does it seem like there are sort of ecological niches in newsgroups, and
someone comes along to fill each niche? I can't remember a time when clf
didn't have somebody trying to prove to us that there was something
basicly wrong with Forth. Whenever one of them left another would
replace him. And now it's you.
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