FORTH, PASCAL, and C--- which one w

[dgary at ecsvax.UUCP]

Let me jump into this fray with an observation on my biggest
disappointment with Forth:  Unless you use bottom-up development you
have to write in an edit-compile-run fashion, just as in other
languages.  This is because if A calls B you have to define B before A,
and if you later redefine B, A still calls the old version.

APL (and LOGO and a few non-standard Forths) offer a much nicer
approach.  You can write B as a stub routine and redifine it later.
Routine A always calls the latest version of B.  This is the way an
interpretive environment should work!

I became a fanatical convert to this point of view when (many years ago
when I had time for such things) I wrote an adventure game development
system in APL.  I could build a few rooms, meander around in them
awhile, add a few more, toss in a few new verbs and objects, and so on,
all very interactively and with absolutely no waiting for the computer
to do anything.  Programmer heaven!
-- 
D Gary Grady
Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
(919) 684-3695
USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary