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Chuck Moore's philosophy is well explained by this paragraph: > Likewise the conditionals. In Classic Forth we used IF ELSE THEN > And I have eliminated ELSE.
by gioele 14y ago
Chuck Moore's philosophy is well explained by this paragraph:
> Likewise the conditionals. In Classic Forth we used IF ELSE THEN
> And I have eliminated ELSE.
> I don't see that ELSE is as useful as the complexity it introduces would justify. You can see this in my code. I will have IF with a semicolon and then I will exit the definition at that point or continue.
He also highlights why people cannot code well in Forth:
> There is something more than the formalism and syntax of Forth that has got to be embedded in your brain before you're going to be effective at what you do.
The average programmer cannot grasp that "thing" that makes you a good Forth programmer.
- RodgerTheGreat 14y agoChuck's philosophy is all about getting rid of everything that is not absolutely necessary for the task at hand, paring both the problem and solution down to the minimum. Compare this with the instinct that most programmers have to generalize every problem and abstract code into "reusable" modules, whether or not that code is ever actually reused. Chuck might say that the best way to write maintainable code is to keep the codebase small enough that it can be rewritten when the requirements change. To program in Forth you have to fight against instincts drawn in from other languages.