FORTH, PASCAL, and C--- which one would you choose (it depends ?)

[Jerrold Gray]

> Now, the question is :
> It seems that Forth is as extensible and structured as C and Pascal (to my
> understanding), and generates more compact and faster execution program.
> Its interpreter being far more faster than BASIC's makes developement time of a
> project much less than when using 'edit-compile-link-test' type of language.
> I wonder why Forth is still less popular (to my impression) than C and Pascal.
> 
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR FORTH ENVIRONMENT ***


It has been my experience that whenever speed has been the critical issue,
critical components ( if not all ) of a software package should be written
in assembly language. This optimizing for speed is at the expense of
development time and the general level of support by other developers.

I suspect that the reason Forth is not more popular is that software
support in Forth is more difficult than in the other languages you
cited. The effort expended in support (debugging or adding features)
is product of understanding the native language used as well as the
architecture and symbology of the orginal author. The "keyword" here
is "cryptic".

In assembly language the symbology is fairly fixed so you only have to
deal with the native language (op codes) and the program structure.
Though in a higher level language, the symbology of Fortran and most
flavors of BASIC is also pretty much predefined. The languages in between
allow a lot of freedom to make software extremely cryptic, with
the effect peaking in Forth. I also suspect some people have raised
software cryptography to another artform.

As an effective test of which language to use.  Get good and drunk on 
several occasions, and write several pages of code ( to do something
harmless of course) whilst under the influence. The result doesn't have
to be entirely working when finished. Before sobriety returns, hide your
source code somewhere where you won't find it for a few weeks.
If and when you find it, try to understand it.  Better yet... try to fix it.

My recommendation is to stick with C or Pascal linked to assembly coded
critical routines where necessary.

				Jerrold L. Gray
				uw-beaver!telone!dataio!pilchuck!jgray

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