I work in a firmware shop that uses C and Forth (and assembly, duh). I like Forth, it is a very interesting, fun to work with language. For whatever reason, most programmers in our shop (~50 ppl) hate it. I mean they ardently detest it! I think I know why.
First of all, it has a completely different syntax than the traditional C-like languages. People just don't have time to glean the idiosyncracies from the language, they are too busy deciphering chip specs.
Secondly, it is much less structured than C. So what? Well, when you have 10 very individualistic ppl working on a C program, you get an obfuscated mess. That's our reality. When those ppl program in Forth, it ends up twice as obfuscated!
Last, the RPL notation really bothers most ppl, b/c ppl hate to truly think about what they are doing. They want the compiler to complain at them about their mistakes. So you change a line, compile, change a line, compile, repeat. That doesn't work in Forth, it's much closer to assembly in that way. It pretty much crunches everything down to byte-codes no matter what you do.
Slashdot Mirror
Really, where? I'd love to see a link to that on sprintpcs.com!
Won't it swallow up the whole earth?
- First of all, it has a completely different syntax than the traditional C-like languages. People just don't have time to glean the idiosyncracies from the language, they are too busy deciphering chip specs.
- Secondly, it is much less structured than C. So what? Well, when you have 10 very individualistic ppl working on a C program, you get an obfuscated mess. That's our reality. When those ppl program in Forth, it ends up twice as obfuscated!
- Last, the RPL notation really bothers most ppl, b/c ppl hate to truly think about what they are doing. They want the compiler to complain at them about their mistakes. So you change a line, compile, change a line, compile, repeat. That doesn't work in Forth, it's much closer to assembly in that way. It pretty much crunches everything down to byte-codes no matter what you do.
Forth love if honk then