Re: advantages of forth over other languages

John Passaniti wrote:
> John Doty wrote:
>>> Coders love to learn new languages.  After all, it's what we do!
>>
>> Yes, but the people who actually accomplish things with computers have 
>> other priorities.
> 
> No, it's the same priorities.  But like so many discussions in 
> comp.lang.forth, you take an overly-literal interpretation of what 
> people write and make no attempt to understand the meaning.
> 
> Take "learn new languages" as an example.  The purpose of a programming 
> language is to express a solution within the paradigms, abstractions, 
> models, and idioms sup****ted by that language.  In that sense, "learn 
> new languages" means understanding different ways to conceptualize and 
> create a solution for a problem.

Sure. So the problem solver is looking to what might be helpful in 
solving the problem. But that doesn't indicate any love for learning new 
languages. Often, the old ones work fine.

> 
> In other words, the point of "learn new languages" is to be able to 
> "accomplish things with computers" by enlarging the choices one has and 
> the techniques one might use.  A programmer who only knows one language 
> and is stuck within what that language may certainly "accomplish things 
> with computers," but it may not be the best solution.

At the cutting edge, the best solution is unobtainable. The choice is 
solution or no solution. Later on, when you understand what you're 
doing, you can work on "best". But again, programming knowledge is of 
limited use in judging what "best" means in a real application. The 
domain rules.

> 
> The more naive and inexperienced programmers don't get this because they

> are stuck within a paradigm and think that describes the world.  To 
> them, the differences between languages is nothing more than syntax.
> 
> You don't suffer from this-- at least I don't think you do.  You've 
> mentioned experience with languages that suggest you understand at least

> two different paradigms (procedural and functional) and there may be 
> others.  So your experience must be broad enough and your mind must be 
> agile enough to envision solutions that may be quite different from each

> other, and not just in terms of syntax.

Thanks. But this stuff comes easily to me (one minor project I'm working 
on these days is learning Verilog). It *doesn't* come so easily to 
others whose expertise I must rely on. Genius takes many forms. So it's 
im****tant to keep the methodology as straightforward as possible, even 
if something more sophisticated might be "best" by some irrelevant metric.

> 
> So yeah, you must at some level understand that "learn new languages" 
> isn't just a no-op in terms of what programmers do and that has direct 
> relevance toward "accomplish things with computers."  At least it does 
> for good programmers who care about their work.  Bad programmers who are

> stuck inside the mental boxes the languages they use surround themselves

> with (including Forth) don't care.  Possibly because they don't know 
> enough to care.

Or because they are free from the mental box of programming, and have 
other priorities outside of it. That can make someone extremely 
effective at getting work done with a computer, even if their programs 
are chaotic messes. Of course, cleaning up after such people is a 
valuable skill, too.

-- 
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.