From: mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas)
Subject: Re: "Free" Forth is expensive
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 02:54:22 GMT
Organization: StarNine Technologies, Inc.

In article <5510@transfer.stratus.com> nick@sw.stratus.com (Nicolas Tamburri) writes:
>mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas) writes:
>
>You are right Mike;  JForth runs circles around MVP-FORTH.   But as a
>former customer of v1 JForth on a borrowed Amiga 1000, I can state that
>I would never have plunked down the $99.00 for your system had I not
>tried MVP-FORTH first.  In some perverse way,  I needed to know that I
>could run Forth on an Amiga;  MVP-FORTH assured me that it was possible.

Thanks for  the kind words, but Nic, I need to ask you... what machine
DOESN'T run forth of some kind?  Actually, the question becomes,
what machine CAN'T forth run on?

>But its limitations, rather than turning me off, then led me to seek
>better alternatives;  in this case JForth.  I don't know if I would have
>bought JForth anyway,  by that time I was pretty much into Forth,

I think you are indirectly making my point.  Forthers will search for
a better alternative because the KNOW it's out there...they "have the
faith".  But newcomers, if their initial exposure is so minimal,
will do the opposite (IMHO).

>but I
>was also trying to get into C, and let's face it,  the Amiga is geared
>toward C.  C looked just as tempting as Forth, it was MVP-FORTH which
>made me realize that Forth was viable on it.

But MVP sure ain't gonna convince a C person to try JForth...or a Pascal
person, or Modula-2, or...  (maybe BASIC :-)

>
>This scenario has repeated itself on every machine I've ever had access
>to, including a PC and my present Mac.  

As it has for most who both 1). love Forth  and 2). experiment with
different platforms.  That's a pretty narrow window, no?

>What I'm now looking for is a
>Forth that runs on all of them, with enough support that I can build an
>application on the Mac and bring it to the the other platforms.  This
>includes having common libraries on all systems which can provide the
>same look for all platforms.  A tall order for a hobbyist budget, I know,
>but it would be nice if vendors started moving in that directions instead
>of providing everything but the kitchen sink in one platform dependent
>environment.

Hmm.  I spent hours trying to fit that sink in there, too.  Sounds
like you would have rather I left out that dishwasher!  :-)

Seriously, I wanted to provide an extremely comprehensive Amiga
development system...something that would make those C fellows
take notice of Forth.  And they have, it seems to be pretty-well
respected in Amiga programming circles.  That can't be bad.

I think that your platform-wide Forth libraries concept is a
great one.  And I'm sure that if someone gets to work on it
(maybe even me), JForth will be the underpinnings on the Amiga.

>
>I look forward to JForth-386 to compete with Forthmacs-386 :-)

While the idea of competing with Forthmacs isn't too tantalizing,
any platform being served by great products does benefit.  From what
I've gathered, Mitch & I tend to agree on alot of "super forth"
concepts.  I wonder if we vote the same ticket?  :-)

Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth