Moore often talks about being a "1X" programmer, as opposed to a "10X" programmer. By which he means that he writes only a fraction of the code that others do.

Moore often talks about being a "1X" programmer, as opposed to a "10X" programmer. By which he means that he writes only a fraction of the code that others do. I think it all boils down to specificity vs generality. Moore is specific. He solves one problem, not many. If he has a different problem, then he uses a different solution. By being tightly focussed on his one specific problem, there's many things he doesn't need. Like, he doesn't need a file system. He just stores data and code in blocks in the disk. You end up with a system that is small, tight, minimalist, does what it needs, and then stops. That approach doesn't work if you want to make something more general-purpose, like a Linux kernel. It's not like Linus Torvalds is a nincompoop that somehow didn't realise that 90% of the code was unnecessary. Linux is popular because it solves a broad range of problems to a broad range of people. Forth systems are unpopular because they solve the problem of one man. Not only that, that one man must have a mental model of how his whole system works. The upside is that the system is much simpler than a general-purpose one. One could say that Forth is not just a language, but a whole philosophy as to how and what programs should be constructed.