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> I don't think I did such a thing. Yes, you were more subtle about it, calling him inexperienced rather than stupid. I see little difference between the two f

> I don't think I did such a thing. Yes, you were more subtle about it, calling him inexperienced rather than stupid. I see little difference between the two forms of ad hominem and that is what I wanted to point out. > which is even less convenient than Forth's syntax The two versions are syntactically the same. You can take a piece of Forth code and do the substitution: s/if/[/ s/else/] [/ s/then/] if/ You then have some Stem code that is slightly shorter. The Stem syntax is just a generalised version of the Forth syntax. The only exception I can think of is it being harder to compile, but as you said, that tiny bit of speed doesn't really matter on modern systems and additionally the code would likely be optimised to the same instructions in a JIT. > You want the system to keep quiet when you give an hint that you do something on purpose Why? No code that's saved in production should ever redefine variables, so it's a warning you'd get exclusively during interactive use at the REPL, where you'd be free to ignore it. It's easier to ignore a message than it is to tell the system not to give you that message.

ret2pop 3y ago
To be fair, I am inexperienced. I haven't done much programming in stack based languages and I don't often like to pull the age card but in my defense I have not lived as long as some other people on here as I just turned 18 and have not been programming for that long. Still, it's really cool that some people like my language, and it doesn't really bother me that some people think it's worse -- I just wrote it because I thought it was interesting.
- incanus77 3y ago
  > Still, it's really cool that some people like my language, and it doesn't really bother me that some people think it's worse -- I just wrote it because I thought it was interesting. Stick with this attitude and you'll go far.
- astrobe_ 3y ago
  Sorry about that, I usually try to refrain from making negative comments on HN. I was sort of mislead by your comment in the thread that you did not make this (didn't get the joke), and thought that the author was unlikely to read that. Don't take it personally, as I was actually pointing what I think is a common mistake. I did a lot of mistakes in this domain, so I'm trying to share my experience here more than gratuitously criticizing a project.
astrobe_ 3y ago
> Yes, you were more subtle about it, calling him inexperienced rather than stupid. I see little difference between the two forms of ad hominem and that is what I wanted to point out. I said that because that's how I see myself doing Forth a couple of decades ago. But there should not be any ambiguity here. Inexperience is the lack of knowledge, stupidity is a disappointing failure to use knowledge. As for the ad homininem, that's a unfair because aside from that single remark, the subject of what I wrote is the feature, not the person who made it. > The two versions are syntactically the same. You can take a piece of Forth code and do the substitution True, but the if comes last and it is a significant ergonomic problem. For this to be not too unpleasant, you'll have to keep the quotations very short in practice, which is not a bad thing at all as "keep it short and simple" is a general good piece of advice which is specially true with "unfriendly" or "alien" languages, but one might be disappointed in terms of "usability": for instance nested quotes are something you will actively avoid because of that. > The only exception I can think of is it being harder to compile, but as you said, that tiny bit of speed doesn't really matter on modern systems and additionally the code would likely be optimised to the same instructions in a JIT You add complexity to the system in order to compensate for its deficiencies, exactly as I pointed out. Because it is more a glue language than a general purpose language as I understand it, a JIT shouldn't be needed. BTW, the "modern systems" argument is a fallacy IMO, as many general purpose interpreted languages had to go the JIT route (JS, Python to make it viable for more demanding applications, Lua as well, Smalltalk, PLT Scheme/Racket to name a few). For glue languages, that's different because making up for the typical 10X slowdown of interpretation with the full speed native code libraries can go a long way.
- James_K 3y ago
  > the if comes last and it is a significant ergonomic problem Such is the issue with Forth in general. > You add complexity to the system in order to compensate for its deficiencies It is often true that to make the language simpler you must make its implementation more complex. I view this as a good thing. Having one slightly more complicated implementation is much better than many slightly more complicated programs.
  - 3y ago

ret2pop 3y ago

To be fair, I am inexperienced. I haven't done much programming in stack based languages and I don't often like to pull the age card but in my defense I have not lived as long as some other people on here as I just turned 18 and have not been programming for that long. Still, it's really cool that some people like my language, and it doesn't really bother me that some people think it's worse -- I just wrote it because I thought it was interesting.

incanus77 3y ago
> Still, it's really cool that some people like my language, and it doesn't really bother me that some people think it's worse -- I just wrote it because I thought it was interesting. Stick with this attitude and you'll go far.
astrobe_ 3y ago
Sorry about that, I usually try to refrain from making negative comments on HN. I was sort of mislead by your comment in the thread that you did not make this (didn't get the joke), and thought that the author was unlikely to read that. Don't take it personally, as I was actually pointing what I think is a common mistake. I did a lot of mistakes in this domain, so I'm trying to share my experience here more than gratuitously criticizing a project.

astrobe_ 3y ago

> Yes, you were more subtle about it, calling him inexperienced rather than stupid. I see little difference between the two forms of ad hominem and that is what I wanted to point out. I said that because that's how I see myself doing Forth a couple of decades ago. But there should not be any ambiguity here. Inexperience is the lack of knowledge, stupidity is a disappointing failure to use knowledge. As for the ad homininem, that's a unfair because aside from that single remark, the subject of what I wrote is the feature, not the person who made it. > The two versions are syntactically the same. You can take a piece of Forth code and do the substitution True, but the if comes last and it is a significant ergonomic problem. For this to be not too unpleasant, you'll have to keep the quotations very short in practice, which is not a bad thing at all as "keep it short and simple" is a general good piece of advice which is specially true with "unfriendly" or "alien" languages, but one might be disappointed in terms of "usability": for instance nested quotes are something you will actively avoid because of that. > The only exception I can think of is it being harder to compile, but as you said, that tiny bit of speed doesn't really matter on modern systems and additionally the code would likely be optimised to the same instructions in a JIT You add complexity to the system in order to compensate for its deficiencies, exactly as I pointed out. Because it is more a glue language than a general purpose language as I understand it, a JIT shouldn't be needed. BTW, the "modern systems" argument is a fallacy IMO, as many general purpose interpreted languages had to go the JIT route (JS, Python to make it viable for more demanding applications, Lua as well, Smalltalk, PLT Scheme/Racket to name a few). For glue languages, that's different because making up for the typical 10X slowdown of interpretation with the full speed native code libraries can go a long way.

James_K 3y ago
> the if comes last and it is a significant ergonomic problem Such is the issue with Forth in general. > You add complexity to the system in order to compensate for its deficiencies It is often true that to make the language simpler you must make its implementation more complex. I view this as a good thing. Having one slightly more complicated implementation is much better than many slightly more complicated programs.
- 3y ago