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Re: [colorforth] Ideas

On Sunday 29 February 2004 04:57 pm, Adam Marquis wrote:
> I don't place any value on education, I know what I want and there's
> people out there that want it too.
> We don't need educated people, we need capable people.

This is dangerous thinking.  Education is extremely important.  Without 
education, we wouldn't have anywhere near the understanding of the world 
we live in today.  Attempting to solve a problem in an uneducated manner 
will only create more problems.  History has shown this time and time 
and time again, in political, sociological, economic, and technical 
fields alike.  But, it requires education to understand this, so I guess 
I'm just pissing into the wind.

> Learning takes time and energy. I dont want to waste those I dont want

Cry me a river.

> to preach, maybe only by example.
> If its per project basis, why learn so much stuff I won't use anyway?

Two reasons.  First, repetition re-inforces concepts.  By learning things 
on a case-by-case basis, you can form generalizations.  Those 
generalizations are the kernals of true understanding.  Second, it shows 
by example what *not* to do in many cases to achieve a given goal.

"Those who don't know how to write an OS are doomed to re-invent Unix, 
only poorly."  This is a very true statement.  Of all the operating 
systems in the world today, name me **one** "modern" operating system 
that is significantly/fundamentally unique from Unix.  I can name only 
two.  The rest are . . . Unix.

> Although I admire Jeff Fox (c.l.f) and
> yourself (Samuel) for your quality verbose output, I don't aspire to
> attain the same level,
> as I don't master English enough and I'm not willing to master it
> enough, along with
> all those junk technologies (abstractions) just to act as the "perfect
> parrot".

Huh?

1) What does English have to do with anything at all?  You're making a 
false connection between the English language and some subject matter 
(doesn't matter which).  This is illogical.  But, then, it requires 
education to recognize the logical fallacy, something you "don't aspire" 
to, which brings me to, . . .

2) If you don't aspire to learn, then you don't aspire at all!  Life is 
all about learning.  Your whole ColorForth projects have been nothing 
*but* learning experiences for you.  Why artificially restrict yourself 
to JUST ColorForth?  As Mark Slicker said in another post, ColorForth 
did **NOT** just happen overnight.  Its evolution started from the 
*very* *beginnings* of Forth back in the 60s.  He had to learn some 
aspects of other programming languages to be able to find and refine 
certain ideas and concepts in Forth (e.g., ColorForth's and 
MachineForth's preferred looping constructs were borne out of work by 
Chuck to find out what was wrong with other language control structures 
in Forth, such as DO/LOOP [Fortran], FOR/NEXT [Basic], 
BEGIN/WHILE/REPEAT [C, Pascal, and other Algol-derived languages]).  He 
had to learn how operating systems were structured internally to 
decipher obtuse device driver code to reverse-engineer some things to 
get ColorForth working (this is documented in a few of Chuck's videos on 
Ultra Technology).  Chuck admits himself that Lisp had a *huge* 
influence on Forth!  The list goes on.

I think people need to sit back and seriously re-evaluate the meaning of 
their lives.  If you want a true revolution, not only in computer 
science, but in business, politics, whatever, we need something 
seriously lacking: *THOUGHT*.  Nobody THINKS anymore, and that's because 
they don't have the tools for thought -- knowledge.  Knowledge *IS* 
power, and that's why it's so dangerous, and that's the whole crux of my 
argument.

I didn't want to respond to Mark's rebuttal of my points, because it 
completely *missed* the point I was trying to make.  Total non sequitor.  
And I didn't feel like engaging in a knock-out, drag-down argument about 
it, which Mark and I appear to have a violent propensity to do over 
issues.  But to hear someone who is not interested in learning, who is 
not interested in aspiring to be better, . . . what is the meaning of 
your life then?  It really causes me to question whether or not I should 
belong to this group.  Is this the general consensus of those who are 
present here?  If so, then I, like Jeff Fox, shall take my leave.  I 
choose to evolve, not devolve.  Thank you.

--
Samuel A. Falvo II


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