Re: What's right with FORTH and wrong with c.l.f.

Aleksej Saushev wrote:
>> And all the Forths adapted for Windows and *nix hosted platforms
>> do feature easy mechanisms for calling C or other subroutines,
>> so their users have the same access to libraries as anyone else.
> 
> I doubt that either.
> 
> It is a miracle, if you transparently create NUL-terminated strings 
> from pointer-counter pairs, and get the latter from the former at
> the same ease. And I don't believe in such miracles.

A subroutine call is a miracle?  For years, I've never had any problem 
passing string literals between programming languages.  All you have to 
do is choose a representation that makes everyone happy:

	[count] [text] [0]

When I want to pass this string to a language like C, I point to [text] 
and the null at the end keeps the usual library routines happy-- it 
doesn't see the leading count.  When I want to pass this string to a 
language like Forth, I either point to [text] and dereference [count], 
or I point to [count] as appropriate.  It doesn't see the null terminator.