From: jdashiel AT eagle1 DOT eaglenet DOT com
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 23:18:53 -0500 (EST)
To: mharris AT blackwidow DOT saultc DOT on DOT ca
Cc: OpenDOS <opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net>
Subject: Re: [opendos] [OpenDOS] All of them nice ideas
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Although forth isn't widely recognized by the programming
community, it can now run on the whole x86 line of computers.  
There  are more than a few public domain forth systems in
existence too.  The problem with forth comes in two flavors.
First, there's not a whole lot of good beginner's documentation
or teaching material for the language.
Second, most of the forth systems in existence have specialized
in certain areas and excluded others.
As an example, f83 and f-pc short math.
Not that it's impossible to program well in math for
these packages, it's just that the authors of f83 didn't like math.
By extension, f-pc needed Julian Noble's book Scientific Forth
Programming to recover from inherited deficiencies placed or not placed
in f83.  forth79 had more facilities for this in terms of a wider ranging
word set, (words in forth are commands).
f-pc allows compilation of .com files from working applications
so these can run as stand-alone products if desired.



jude <jdashiel AT eagle1 DOT eaglenet DOT com>