From: murphyg@Software.Mitel.COM (Gary Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Free Forth
Date: 13 Aug 92 18:05:14 GMT
	<BEVAN.92Aug6173810@otter.cs.man.ac.uk>
	<BEVAN.92Aug8212328@jaguar.cs.man.ac.uk>
	<1992Aug10.153601.26952@crd.ge.com>
	<BEVAN.92Aug11091421@jaguar.cs.man.ac.uk>
Organization: Applications Software II, MITEL Corporation, Kanata, Ontario,
	Canada
In-reply-to: bevan@cs.man.ac.uk's message of 11 Aug 92 08:14:21 GMT

In article <BEVAN.92Aug11091421@jaguar.cs.man.ac.uk> bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan) writes:

   In article <1992Aug10.153601.26952@crd.ge.com> eaker@ukulele.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Charles E Eaker) writes:
	  I'm curious: can you comment on (1) why C++ was proposed instead of
	  C?

   "Because C++ is `objected oriented' and so it must be better"
   Seriously that is the answer I got when I asked the same question.
   At this point I just gave up and walked away.

Not at all.  Speaking as a reluctant C programmer since the first
versions came out, C++ is light-years ahead of C for large products.
Most of what you do in C++ is just convenient notation for the uglier
parts of C, like the 'hungarian notation' Microsoft is touting. C++ grew
out of the user-feedback from C, and if it were truly portable to as
many platforms as C, I might get more opportunity to use it.

	  (2) how you got free C++ compilers for both UNIX and PCs (and
	  maybe Atari STs)?

Free FORTH, from what I've seen so far, should be compared to Small-C
for the unix/pc side --- they give you the basic idea, but to write
anything worthwhile, you will spend hundreds of times the cost of a real
C in labour reinventing wheels.  This was true until GNU, and the GNU
option is one I would highly recommend for FORTH.  

I currently use the Pygmy FORTH, which is a good engine, but it is sadly
only that, and for the above reason spends most of its time on a
diskette.  I learned all my other languages either by the seat of my
pants (because the client insisted) or through studying sample programs
in the public domain and stealing bits of them to fill out what I didn't
have the skill or the time to implement.  This I see as the real trouble
in FORTH: I look up in the simtel archives, and there isn't a single
truly meaty forth program available in source.  I've ordered a few items
through the FILE ON-LINE offers here, but again, either what I get does
not run in pygmy, or it is too simplistic to bother with.  I like FORTH
and would love to get to know it better, but I have never had the time
to learn by painstaking trial and error; I also cannot afford to spend
hundreds to get a full-featured package for entertainment purposes only.

A few years ago, I found most of my clients would not trust 'free'
software because they thought paying for software guaranteed support.
In the GNU project, the software (and source) is free, but you must pay
for support, and the result has been a set of utilities that so surpase
what the vendors sell that I have been able to move through three
corporate contracts and still be encouraged to use GNU emacs, GNU C/C++,
GNU make, even GNU smalltalk!  When I finally upgrade my PC to a 386,
you can bet my borland compiler will join the forths on the shelfs, as
will my epsilon editor, leaving only my prolog compiler as unsurpased by
free software (I use precious little MsDOS on that machine, having
replaced and extended the system with GNUish MsDOS programs)

   A classic chicken and the egg problem if ever I saw one.

Not really, I think it is irrelevant: the real need is to have an
accessible archive of sample FORTH code to the same degree as we see for
C, Pascal and assembler --- I can get btree database,
dBase/Lotus-interfaces, windowing systems, menu systems, communications
modules, data transfer protocols, TCP/IP drivers, in short, all of the
specialized non-task parts that make a program useful.  In C++, for the
386 and unix users, there is an even more amazing library of what FORTH
would call 'words' available for free --- not the greatest, but then the
C library shipped with most C compilers can contain a lot of junk, too.
The point is, within hours of opening the box, you can demonstrate the
language, and this has not been the case with the free FORTH.  If the
resource is there, most people, even students, might be willing to shell
out $100 or so for a 'production-quality' engine --- this was certainly
true for TurboPascal where Borland was the driving force behind
releasing free sample code for their (then) $69 competitor to the
stagnant $400 IBM Pascal.


--
Gary Lawrence Murphy - Gary.Murphy@software.mitel.COM - (613) 592-2122 x3709
 Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present.