2024-07-21 00:04:53 <KipIngram   > I'm not sure there's an answer.  What most people want is to be able to do sophiticated things with magical ease.  Forth programming - good Forth programming - is HARD.
2024-07-21 00:05:26 <KipIngram   > It's not that the language is hard, but doing it right demands a depth of understanding that goes way beyond bolting Python package calls together.
2024-07-21 00:05:54 <KipIngram   > For the people to whom it can be sold, I think its simplicity is paramount - it's simpicity and yet extensibility.
2024-07-21 00:06:28 <KipIngram   > I'm very enamored of the fact that I could start with Forth to bring up bare metal and then go right on and write every single application in Forth as well, all the way up the chain.
2024-07-21 00:07:06 <KipIngram   > It gets you out of the "use this language for this, that language for that, etc." model.
2024-07-21 00:07:41 <KipIngram   > Also its interactive nature.
2024-07-21 00:19:59 <KipIngram   > I'm  not even sure we should use the word "program" for what most people really want to do.  They want someone else to do the really hard work and hand it to them on a platter so that they can "tinkertoy."
2024-07-21 00:20:16 <KipIngram   > That's just not Forth.
2024-07-21 00:36:30 <zelgomer    > i think that's overly dismissive of other languages and their users
2024-07-21 00:38:03 <zelgomer    > there simply is no debate that forth is very tedious and limiting to work with, and people choosing other languages aren't necessarily just "tinkertoying libraries together." if you think that's what the linux kernel is, i'm not sure you can be helped.
2024-07-21 00:47:11 <zelgomer    > or i'll put it this way: i see forth as algebra. it's simple to understand, pretty easy to use when you get it, and it'll take you far, but some things are just ridiculously overcomplex to express with it. would you consider calculus to be tinkertoys by comparison?
2024-07-21 01:09:04 <zelgomer    > chuck moore famously described forth as better than sudoku. it's a funny quote and as forth users we laugh at it because something is not right with our heads and we know it, but it's just dishonest to deny that this is exactly what you DON'T want in any professional environment