4 ms·

well this paragraph pretty much guarantees that most of the forth code out there is write only.

astrobe_ 1y ago
You realize you are talking about something you have never seen, right? I do. Maybe my ten thousand lines of Forth were barely readable. But not anymore. I have dozens of scripts meant to be throwaways, not something perfect and beautiful meant to published on Github, some of them I actually reused No Problem. And I'm not even a professional Forth programmer; it only has been my go-to language for scripts, prototypes, utilities for a solid decade now. Maybe your intuition tells you that it "has" to be write-only. Full disclosure: I became interested in this language because I thought there's no way it could be viable - forget about "write-only" and "readability", I was already over those fallacies at that time. But on the other hand, there was contrary evidence [1]. So I gave a honest and earnest shot at it. What I learned, among other things, is that most of the work is about going against the habits and ways of thinking that you learned from mainstream languages. Of course it is not something one can learn by stagnating in the comfort zone of Algol++ languages. [1] https://www.forth.com/resources/forth-apps/ https://www.forth.com/resources/forth-apps/
- lucyjojo 1y ago
  the thinking relies on the "sufficiently smart XYZ". similar to - true C++ developers do not write bugs - true agile practitioners build paradise on earth (i jest) - good enough AI coder are vastly more efficient than manual coders etc. when somebody's first answer to a problem/inquiry is "you're not good enough or else you would see the lights" it raises alarms in my head. that said, my first steps in programming were forth (and hp RPL). so i got some familiarity, read code, wrote code, wrote basic interpreters too (for learning purpose). forth is cool and has its uses.
  - astrobe_ 1y ago
    > when somebody's first answer to a problem/inquiry is "you're not good enough or else you would see the lights" it raises alarms in my head. You are kind of right about that, as it is often leads to the "No true Scotsman" fallacy [1]. On the other hand, one should be cautious of not using that as an excuse to give up when one has reached a progress plateau and the next learning curve looks steep. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

You realize you are talking about something you have never seen, right? I do. Maybe my ten thousand lines of Forth were barely readable. But not anymore. I have dozens of scripts meant to be throwaways, not something perfect and beautiful meant to published on Github, some of them I actually reused No Problem. And I'm not even a professional Forth programmer; it only has been my go-to language for scripts, prototypes, utilities for a solid decade now. Maybe your intuition tells you that it "has" to be write-only. Full disclosure: I became interested in this language because I thought there's no way it could be viable - forget about "write-only" and "readability", I was already over those fallacies at that time. But on the other hand, there was contrary evidence [1]. So I gave a honest and earnest shot at it. What I learned, among other things, is that most of the work is about going against the habits and ways of thinking that you learned from mainstream languages. Of course it is not something one can learn by stagnating in the comfort zone of Algol++ languages. [1] https://www.forth.com/resources/forth-apps/ https://www.forth.com/resources/forth-apps/

lucyjojo 1y ago
the thinking relies on the "sufficiently smart XYZ". similar to - true C++ developers do not write bugs - true agile practitioners build paradise on earth (i jest) - good enough AI coder are vastly more efficient than manual coders etc. when somebody's first answer to a problem/inquiry is "you're not good enough or else you would see the lights" it raises alarms in my head. that said, my first steps in programming were forth (and hp RPL). so i got some familiarity, read code, wrote code, wrote basic interpreters too (for learning purpose). forth is cool and has its uses.
- astrobe_ 1y ago
  > when somebody's first answer to a problem/inquiry is "you're not good enough or else you would see the lights" it raises alarms in my head. You are kind of right about that, as it is often leads to the "No true Scotsman" fallacy [1]. On the other hand, one should be cautious of not using that as an excuse to give up when one has reached a progress plateau and the next learning curve looks steep. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman