Re: Re: objects and forth

Would it be possible, before this list descends like so many others into a flame war, to emphasize the positive and avoid as much as possible the temptation to tell folks 1) "Don't" do this-or-that and 2) why this-or-that is an unacceptable approach. It all tends toward the futility of trying to teach a pig (e.g., me) to sing: it wastes your time and it annoys the pig.

Thanks,
Geof


On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:40:18 -0700, Aleksej Saushev <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>   Hello!
>
> Don't top-post, please. It breaks the flow and is hard to clean up.
>
> "John R. Strohm" <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> From: "Aleksej Saushev" <[email protected]>
>>> "John R. Strohm" <[email protected]> writes:
>>>
>>>> Learning C first will probably do some damage.
>>>>
>>>> Learning Smalltalk first will probably do some serious damage.
>>>
>>> Which way? I don't believe that.
>>>
>>> I'm more inclined to believe that learning Smalltalk first will cure  
>>> you
>>> from Forth DIY disease. At least with Smalltalk you get complete  
>>> system,
>>> usable "mind amplifier."
>>>
>>>> Learning LISP first, if you learn it RIGHT (i.e., from SICP),
>>>> will probably help a lot more than it hurts.
>>>>
>>>> Recall that there are two categories of computer languages:
>>>> LISP, and everything else.
>>>
>>> And how much does Smalltalk differ from Lisp in conceptual simplicity  
>>> of
>>> base language?
>>>
>>> I'm pretty sure, that if you learn Smalltalk right, it will help more
>>> than learning Forth rigth. Just compare Squeak to equally licensed  
>>> Forth,
>>> pForth or FICL. Feel the difference. Compare it to Gforth and feel it  
>>> again.
>>
>> The question was whether learning C, Smalltalk, or LISP before
>> attempting to learn FORTH would help or hurt.
>
> The question was not this, as you could easily see above, if you didn't  
> top-post.
> There were two more particular questions:
> 1. Which way does Smalltalk do serious damage?
> 2. Why Lisp is considered that different from Smalltalk?
>
>> Smalltalk is, as near as I can tell without spending a LOT of
>> time learning it in detail, inextricably tangled up in twisted
>> weave of classes.  None of C, LISP, or FORTH have that
>> particular feature.  All can be extended with classes. C has two
>> main ways, Objective C and C++.  LISP does it with CLOS.  FORTH,
>> you roll your own, but look at CREATE-DOES> for a starting
>> point.
>
> I can tell you for sure, that Forth is inextricable set of words
> without any classification and even relations inside. All of
> implementations known to me put almost everything into FORTH
> wordlist. In Smalltalk you can learn relations between objects
> and classes, in Forth you can't do it, all you can is to resort
> to external tools, not written in Forth in most frequent case,
> and external documentation, which may be outdated or otherwise
> not reflect the reality.
>
>> It is not clear to me that requiring the student to master many
>> intricacies of object-oriented design and programming is all
>> that likely to help him learn the mindset of a language that
>> explicitly does not include object orientation.
>
> There isn't much complexity in object-oriented design. Most problems
> exist in your head only, because you have learnt another ways to
> structure programs or haven't learnt it at all, or you have learnt too
> many ways of being object-oriented (late vs. early binding, class vs.
> prototype) and you simply can't focus on single one, because you can do
> any of them in Forth. When teaching anyone, it is important to focus
> attention on one single way of doing things, otherwise you don't reach
> any useful effect.
>
>> On The Gripping Hand, as Niven & Pournelle fans say, the RIGHT
>> way to learn FORTH is to grab a copy of Leo Brodie's wonderful
>> book "Starting FORTH", and work through it.  Follow that up with
>> "Thinking FORTH", by the same author.
>
> Like I pointed above: Smalltalk enables novice to write practically
> useful programs right away, you can't tell that about Forth, Forth
> isn't even near to the same level.
>
>



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