Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
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From: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: The powerlessness of Lisp
Message-ID: <QJCARG@xds13.ferranti.com>
Reply-To: peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
Organization: Xenix Support, FICC
References: <1991Mar26.172536.12178@linus.mitre.org> <2QAARF@xds13.ferranti.com> <1991Mar29.164740.25066@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 22:00:09 GMT

In article <1991Mar29.164740.25066@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu> wilson@uicbert.eecs.uic.edu (Paul Wilson) writes:
> peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
> >In article <1991Mar26.172536.12178@linus.mitre.org> john@mingus.mitre.org (John D. Burger) writes:
> >>   A ``REAL source level debugger'' and incremental compilation are
> >>   functions of the environment.

> >Just for the hell of it, let me point out that the two languages that
> >have the greatest number of units out with these features *are* statically
> >typed: Forth and Basic.
>         ^^^^^

> But Forth doesn't have a "REAL source level," so how could it have a
> REAL source level debugger? 

> Anything where you see raw words on the stack (as opposed to variables
> with names and/or types) sounds like debugging intermediate code to me.
> :-)  (Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

This is a reasonable point, but I understand that people find other
stack-based languages (POP?, Postscript) quite adequate. For programming
in Forth, you have to think Forth:

	A-REASONABLE-POINT SWAP SET-ATTRIBUTE
	LANGUAGES STACK-BASED DUP POP ?HAS-ATTRIBUTE 0= ABORT" OOPS"
		DUP POSTSCRIPT HAS-ATTRIBUTE
		OTHER-PEOPLE FIND-REASONABLE SELF UNDERSTANDING SET-ATTRIBUTE
	FORTH PROGRAMMING-IN IF FORTH THINK THEN

Oops, I left stack-based languages on the stack.
-- 
Peter da Silva.  `-_-'  peter@ferranti.com
+1 713 274 5180.  'U`  "Have you hugged your wolf today?"
