CompuServe Messages

Forth or C?

    27-May-87 22:27:58
Sb: #69508-Forth or C?
Fm: Mike Danner 72777,1402
To: Thomas Holaday 70407,534
Thomas, JForth does sound good, but I'm a trifle concerned about Forth's lack of structure as compared to Pascal or M2. It seems to be such an expressive language that each persons own programming quirks become imbedded in the environment. I can see myself struggling to decipher my own code a year later – not to mention someone elses programs. Lots of folks have told me that if I learn C, I'll fall in love with it; but I don't know. C is sometimes elegant but it looks unfriendly. I've heard the horror stories about hidden syntax errors and incorrect but legal expressions. I'm not altogether thrilled with a 5 min. compile/link cycle either – I want to have fun exploring my machine! I think I'll give Forth a try first. It costs less anyway. If JForth delivers all it promises, I may be able to use it for both work and play. It would really be great to have an interactive programming environment that could also produce fast/small 68000 code. Now where is that A2000? msd