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Date:Mon Sep 29 17:42:30 1993 
Subject:Re: Threaded Interpretive Languages 
From:Jack Woehr 
Volume-ID:930929.06 

pop@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Robin Popplestone) writes:

>The zeitgeist works in mysterious ways...

	Ain't it the truth, Robin!? For instance, it's pretty obvious that
Forth and C were invented primarily to solve one and the same problem,
which was to transform the archaic, lugubrious human-oriented syntax of
the then-extant languages into a more machine-oriented, low-level compromise
syntax. 

>I suspect that Moore, in developing Forth, had less the needs of symbolic
>computing in mind. That would seem to be the primary difference between POP-1
>and Forth.

	Interesting in this regard is to compare Forth to Postcript,
the latter being more oriented towards symbolic computing, yet
differing from Forth in essentially only three respects:

	1) Addition of the /symbol data type.

	2) Metachar parsing forcing forth "+", for example, to be renamed
	Postscript "plus".

	3) Temporary heap objects and garbage collection added to PS.

		=jax=
--
#jax@cygnus.com			# "Forth is the only SDI possibility. The
#jax@well.sf.ca.us		#  chance of convincing them of that is zero.
#72203.1320@compuserve.com	#  So pray for disarmament."
#SYSOP RCFB (303) 278-0364	# - Chuck Moore, live on Compuserve, 1986