Don't Fall in Love With Your Technology

[Mentifex]

Some recovering Forth addict has written a blog-post at

http://prog21.dadgum.com/128.html

with the above title. I found it on Reddit, where

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/ptxal/dont_fall_in_love_with_your_technology/

is the massive discussion he has sparked.
In fair use I quote from his blogpost:

> In the 1990s I followed the Usenet group comp.lang.forth.
> Forth has great personal appeal. It's minimalist to the point
> of being subversive, and Forth literature once crackled with
> rightness.

Somehow they got to him. Somehow they "turned" him.

> A decade later, I stuck my head back in and started
> reading. It was the same. The same tinkering with the
> language, the same debates, and the same peculiar
> lack of interest in using Forth to build incredible things.

Oh, please! Wait til you try to pass through a TSA
whole-body imaging machine and the Gestapo goons
start screaming, "Hey everbody! Lookee this! The guy
has Green Zombie Aliens inside his cranium!"

Forth is a Gift. Those who outgrow the Gift of Forth
have lost the ablity to dream the Dream, to realize
their nature as created in the Image and Likeness.

Stephen Spielberg! Here's your next movie:
"The Invasion of the Forth-Snatchers".

The same Forth Renegade also wrote:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.forth/msg/582828eb7efc96bc

http://prog21.dadgum.com/46.html
"The Pure Tech Side is the Dark Side"

http://prog21.dadgum.com/51.html
"How Did Things Ever Get This Good?"

http://prog21.dadgum.com/56.html
"The Recovering Programmer"

http://prog21.dadgum.com/123.html
"Recovering From a Computer Science Education"

http://prog21.dadgum.com/126.html
"Four Levels of Idea Theft"

and a lot of other Forth-genius blog-posts.

Mentifex
--
http://code.google.com/p/mindforth

[Brad]

On Feb 17, 12:32 pm, Mentifex <menti...@myuw.net> wrote:
>
> http://prog21.dadgum.com/123.html
> "Recovering From a Computer Science Education"

>> "Stay out of technical forums unless it's directly
>> relevant to something you're working on."

Ooh.

[Rod Pemberton]

"Mentifex" <ment...@myuw.net> wrote in message
news:8e4d1e51-06cc-4003...@i10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...

> Some recovering Forth addict has written a blog-post at

> [...]

> with the above title. I found it on Reddit, where

> [...]

> is the massive discussion he has sparked.
> In fair use I quote from his blogpost:
>
> > In the 1990s I followed the Usenet group comp.lang.forth.
> > Forth has great personal appeal. It's minimalist to the point
> > of being subversive, and Forth literature once crackled with
> > rightness.

I agree with him

See my reply to Mr. Doug Hoffman (on c.l.f).

> Somehow they got to him. Somehow they "turned" him.

Shouldn't you be quoting "they" instead of "turned" ... ?

Why is it important that he turned, instead of who inspired it? Shouldn't
"they" be "demonized" instead of "condeming" his act of "turning"? It's as
if his newly found truth is a total betrayal to you. What business is it of
yours to take a stake in the nature of his beliefs? Shouldn't you be glad
he "sees" the truth now instead of being "blind"?

> Forth is a Gift.

Could you explain what you mean by that? I.e., "Gift" in what way?
Biblical? The words in Forth are without order or meaning until *you*
provide it.

I've programmed in over a dozen languages in my lifetime and there isn't one
that I'd remotely consider calling a gift ... They all take work and time
to use or learn. C is superb, but it's still flawed.

> Those who outgrow the Gift of Forth
> have lost the ablity to dream the Dream, to realize
> their nature as created in the Image and Likeness.

"Those who outgrow the Gift of Forth" - whatever that means - are either
1) no longer programming or 2) programming in some other language now
which they view as the "new" truth and "way". So, from your perspective
that implies anyone who was never "possessed" by the "Gift of Forth", say
like a C programmer, never ever had "the ability to dream the Dream, to
realize their nature [...]." Saying all non-Forth programmers are "without
form, and void" creatively is very offensive. Don't we all have "free
will"?


Rod Pemberton
PS dropped comp.programming, comp.lang.misc.

[Mentifex]

On Feb 18, 2:28 am, "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_h...@noavailemail.cmm>
wrote:
> "Mentifex" <menti...@myuw.net> wrote in message

>
> news:8e4d1e51-06cc-4003...@i10g2000pbc.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Some recovering Forth addict has written a blog-post at
> > [...]
> > with the above title. I found it on Reddit, where
> > [...]
> > is the massive discussion he has sparked.
> > In fair use I quote from his blogpost:
>
> > > In the 1990s I followed the Usenet group comp.lang.forth.
> > > Forth has great personal appeal. It's minimalist to the point
> > > of being subversive, and Forth literature once crackled with
> > > rightness.
>
> I agree with him
>
> See my reply to Mr. Doug Hoffman (on c.l.f).
>
> > Somehow they got to him. Somehow they "turned" him.
>
> Shouldn't you be quoting "they" instead of "turned" ...  ?

Yes, but then I would sound paranoid.

>
> Why is it important that he turned, instead of who inspired it?
> Shouldn't "they" be "demonized" instead of "condeming" his act
> of "turning"?

http://prog21.dadgum.com/57.html

is where the erstwhile Forther explains
why he does not allow blog-Comments:

> The negativity of online technical discussions
> makes me bitter, and even though I'm sometimes
> drawn to them I need to stay away.

I wanted to go ahead and Comment anyway, using
comp.lang.forth that _he_ was commenting about.
At the same time I want to act out my literary
ambitions by writing an enjoyable c.l.f post

> It's as if his newly found truth is a total
> betrayal to you.  What business is it of yours
> to take a stake in the nature of his beliefs?

None, I guess :-)

> Shouldn't you be glad he "sees" the truth now
> instead of being "blind"?

Yes, you're right.

>
> > Forth is a Gift.
>
> Could you explain what you mean by that?
> I.e., "Gift" in what way? Biblical?

I meant it in the sense of "the Gift of Faith".
Once you lose your Faith in God, you may not
get it back, because it was merely a gift.
Likewise, Netizens who lose their Faith
in Forth may not get it back :-(

> The words in Forth are without order or meaning
> until *you* provide it.

"How aweet it is :-)"

>
> I've programmed in over a dozen languages in
> my lifetime and there isn't one that I'd remotely
> consider calling a gift ...  They all take work and time
> to use or learn.  C is superb, but it's still flawed.

I would call REXX on the Amiga a gift. A program in
REXX could orchestrate the actions of many apps
on the multi-tasking Amiga.

>
> > Those who outgrow the Gift of Forth
> > have lost the ablity to dream the Dream, to realize
> > their nature as created in the Image and Likeness.
>
> "Those who outgrow the Gift of Forth" - whatever that means -
> are either 1) no longer programming or 2) programming in some
> other language now which they view as the "new" truth and "way".

You have a truly Divine way of expressing yourself :-)

> So, from your perspective that implies anyone who was
> never "possessed" by the "Gift of Forth", say like a C
> programmer, never ever had "the ability to dream the Dream,
> to realize their nature [...]."  Saying all non-Forth
> programmers are "without form, and void"

They are like the empty Universe where
in the Beginning was the Forthword; or:

http://www.nealstephenson.com/command

"IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE COMMAND LINE"

> creatively is very offensive.
> Don't we all have "free will"?

http://code.google.com/p/mindforth/wiki/FreeWill

yes -- as a function of our available knowledge.

>
> Rod Pemberton
> PS dropped comp.programming, comp.lang.misc.

Thank you for your enlightened opinions and ideas.

Arthur T. Murray

[Walter Bushell]

In article
<59e870a4-a045-4a92...@pw4g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,

Mentifex <ment...@myuw.net> wrote:

> "IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE COMMAND LINE"

In my day Sonny we entered programs through the front panel in absolute
octal machine code, no sissy assemblers for us and we liked it.

See also, and a later more effete time "Mel the real programmer".

Toggle switches and wiring boards. You haven't programmed until you've
entered patches at least through the front panel.

--
It is the nature of the human species to reject what is true but unpleasant
and to embrace what is obviously false but comforting. -- H. L. Mencken

[Paul E. Bennett]

Walter Bushell wrote:

> In article
> <59e870a4-a045-4a92...@pw4g2000pbc.googlegroups.com>,
> Mentifex <ment...@myuw.net> wrote:
>
>> "IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE COMMAND LINE"
>
> In my day Sonny we entered programs through the front panel in absolute
> octal machine code, no sissy assemblers for us and we liked it.
>
> See also, and a later more effete time "Mel the real programmer".
>
> Toggle switches and wiring boards. You haven't programmed until you've
> entered patches at least through the front panel.

You had switches??!!!! My first programming task required a soldering iron
to put the diodes onto the matrix boards. ;>

When I graduated to switches (my first 6800 project) my codes were in hand
crafted hex (about 4k of the stuff). Then we got to the ASR33 teletype and
paper tape (when we got clever and wrote the names of progs on the leader).
Also liked the way we could programme the magnetic core memory and carry it
across the factory to plug it into the system that required it.

--
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett...............<email://Paul_E....@topmail.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-510979
Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk..
********************************************************************

[Hugh Aguilar]

On Feb 17, 12:32 pm, Mentifex <menti...@myuw.net> wrote:

> In fair use I quote from his blogpost:
>
> > In the 1990s I followed the Usenet group comp.lang.forth.
> > Forth has great personal appeal. It's minimalist to the point
> > of being subversive, and Forth literature once crackled with
> > rightness.
>
> Somehow they got to him. Somehow they "turned" him.
>
> > A decade later, I stuck my head back in and started
> > reading. It was the same. The same tinkering with the
> > language, the same debates, and the same peculiar
> > lack of interest in using Forth to build incredible things.

There was no "they" that "turned" him --- the Forth community shot
itself in the foot a long time ago. We have met the enemy, and it was
us.

The problem is that there just aren't any libraries available. There
is no support for writing applications in Forth. We have all of those
Forth Inc. books, but they are useless. They don't even describe how
to implement structs, much less basic data structures such as arrays,
lists, etc.. Most Forthers think that this stuff has to be implemented
manually for every application, and then reimplemented again for the
next application, and so forth. That is why I wrote my novice package
(http://www.forth.org/novice.html) --- to support writing application
programs.

That slide-rule program that I wrote wasn't particularly complicated.
It could have been done easily in any language. In Forth however,
*everything* that I needed was missing. That is pathetic! This was in
2008, which 30 years after Forth was invented, and I had to start from
zero to write even a simple application --- I got the impression that
I was the first person to have ever written a non-trivial application
in Forth. About 80% of my time was spent in implementing basic support
code that any other language would have had available already, and
only 20% of my time writing the actual application itself. Every time
that began making progress on the application, I would get side-
tracked implementing some basic support code --- it is very difficult
to program that way, because I lose my train of thought regarding the
application program with these several-day distractions. Writing all
of that support code is how the novice package came into existence
though. I also added a lot of other stuff to the novice package, such
as arrays and associative-arrays, that seemed useful. I made it
publicly available, but all of the comp.lang.forth trolls just
attacked me for it.

Almost everybody who gets interested in Forth just tinkers with
extending the compiler, or they even write their own compiler (I'm
being charitable when I describe indirect-threaded-code as
"compilation"). Nobody ever writes any applications. Nobody ever
writes any code that would be useful for writing applications. Forth
is treated like a science-fair project --- it is not being used to
write applications.

The only person on comp.lang.forth who I think would be capable of
writing something comparable to the novice package, is Anton Ertl ---
but he spends all of his time dinking around with Gforth --- the only
problem is that Gforth is slow as molasses because it is an
interpreter written in C, and it is not useful for writing application
programs because of its abysmal performance. Gforth is a science-fair
project --- it will never be used to write an application program that
is used by anybody other than Forth enthusiasts.

On Feb 17, 4:31 pm, Doug Hoffman <glide...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 2/17/12 2:32 PM, Mentifex wrote:
> >> In the 1990s I followed the Usenet group comp.lang.forth.
>

> >> A decade later, I stuck my head back in and started
> >> reading. It was the same. The same tinkering with the

> >> language, the same debates,...
>
> He's mistaken.  The topics have changed.  I follow it mostly because I
> learn things.  How to do ANS multi-whiles and how to avoid wordlist
> search-order problems with create-does> are just two somewhat recent
> examples.
>
> -Doug

Oh, come on! I had multi-whiles working when I was still a teenager in
the late 1980s living with my mom. That was on SuperForth for the
C-64, or maybe I was still using HES Forth for the Vic-20 --- I don't
remember --- that is ancient history. I may have gotten the idea from
a Forth Dimensions magazine article, or maybe I just thought it up
myself. Who cares?

Your comment just proves the point that you said he was mistaken
about.

[Don McKenzie]

On 19-Feb-12 8:16 PM, Paul E. Bennett wrote:

> Walter Bushell wrote:

>> In my day Sonny we entered programs through the front panel in absolute
>> octal machine code, no sissy assemblers for us and we liked it.
>>
>> See also, and a later more effete time "Mel the real programmer".
>>
>> Toggle switches and wiring boards. You haven't programmed until you've
>> entered patches at least through the front panel.
>

> You had switches??!!!! My first programming task required a soldering iron
> to put the diodes onto the matrix boards. ;>

I did all of the above, but I also worked on this system:
http://www.dontronics.com/first_multi_user_real_time.html

and here is a little of the other systems I worked on:
http://www.dontronics.com/my_early_tote_years.html

Some of the gear I maintained, was built during the 1930s.

Cheers Don...

================


--
Don McKenzie

Dontronics: http://www.dontronics-shop.com/

DuinoMite the PIC32 $35 Basic Computer-MicroController
http://www.dontronics-shop.com/the-maximite-computer.html
Just add a VGA monitor or TV, and PS2 Keyboard.
Arduino Shield, Programmed in Basic, or C.

[Scott Lurndal]

Don McKenzie <5...@2.5A> writes:
>On 19-Feb-12 8:16 PM, Paul E. Bennett wrote:
> > Walter Bushell wrote:
>
> >> In my day Sonny we entered programs through the front panel in absolute
> >> octal machine code, no sissy assemblers for us and we liked it.
> >>
> >> See also, and a later more effete time "Mel the real programmer".
> >>
> >> Toggle switches and wiring boards. You haven't programmed until you've
> >> entered patches at least through the front panel.
> >
> > You had switches??!!!! My first programming task required a soldering iron
> > to put the diodes onto the matrix boards. ;>
>
>I did all of the above, but I also worked on this system:
>http://www.dontronics.com/first_multi_user_real_time.html

My first computer was made from paperclips.

<http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/paperClipComputer/HowToBuildAWorkingDigitalComputer_Jun67.pdf>

scott

[Don McKenzie]

On 26-Feb-12 7:08 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:

>> I did all of the above, but I also worked on this system:
>> http://www.dontronics.com/first_multi_user_real_time.html
>
> My first computer was made from paperclips.
>
> <http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/paperClipComputer/HowToBuildAWorkingDigitalComputer_Jun67.pdf>
>
> scott

Touche! :-)

Cheers Don...