Real Embedded Programmers Write Forth on VMS

Real Embedded Programmers Write Forth on VMS

[Bob Crispen]

Robert Dewar <dewar@CS.NYU.EDU>

>Bob Crispen wrote
>
>">|> What I'm shocked at is that Ada stopped at 16!  How hard would it have
>>|> been to permit *any* numeric base?  Anyone who's ever written a Forth
>>|> compiler knows how simple it is, and how useful things like base-36
>>|> encoding can be.  How many encoding/decoding routines have been written
>>|> that could have been obviated by making the compiler do this work?"
>
>Sure, 35#abfg_ywww# -- what a wonderful addition to a language which
>is intended to be easily readable :-)

Unless'n of course the problem domain is expressed that way ;-)

Mind you, apart from the cute trick of encoding alphanumeric characters
as digits (which is wholly a solution domain affair), I'm not sure there
is any real use for base > 16, but that could simply be lack of imagination
this morning.  In Forth it was quite common for authors of Forth systems
to put their names encoded in base 36 into a variable from which the
reference had been removed.
-----
"Byron B. Kauffman" <KauffmanBB@LFWC.LOCKHEED.COM> sez:

>I realize making this statement may disqualify me from ever deserving
>the official title of 'Mr. Embedded Software Engineer', but I guess I
>just got spoiled by DEC, because I'm having a really hard time getting
>used to the overall 'hackiness' of the UNIX way of life and the fact
>that that same philosophy permeates the UNIX Ada products I've been
>exposed to (admittedly, a short list).

Funny, I'd been working on Telesoft, Alsys and Verdix for not all that
much longer than that, and when I had to do a port of a system to DEC
I found it to be a toy, incapable of supporting serious projects.  How
on earth you ever managed to connect all the directories in that flat
file system using only those ludicrous DEC tools amazes me.  And I was
considerably less than charmed about having to change the file names.

I think that's about an even exchange, proving only that people like
what they're used to.

Bob Crispen
revbob@eight-ball.hv.boeing.com
Speaking for myself, not my company, who would probably keel over if
they found out I knew anything about Forth