Re: Different Strokes for Different Folks (Was: Assessing a language)

> Surprisingly, there hasn't been much work in developing
> heterogenous programming environments, to support a sort of "mix and
> match" approach to programming. Such tools would go a long way to
> alleviating the language holy wars, I think.


It seems to me that this is (somewhat) FORTH does, in that if you
want a word to do something, you can.


I am not much of a FORTH programmer--or advocate--but I've seen
Smalltalk-like FORTH environments, and I've written LISP-y environments.
And I see no reason why one couldn't implement PROLOG-y words, or ML.


The real weakness with FORTH is exactly the opposite of the other
do-everything languages: there is no standard library of stuff to draw on.
Anyone who wants an array must create his own kind of array. This is true
for most every other normally standard language feature. If many shops
have disagreements about how to indent 'C' code, how will they agree on
how to implement something complicated?


andrewb@cs.washington.edu
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