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Re: [colorforth] Re-connecting

On Wed, 9 Feb 2005, Terry Loveall wrote:


Friends,

I love colorForth. colorForth is to C and OSs as the finest flint surgical
scalpel is to a lumber mill. One is not better than the other, they just serve
different purposes. The surgical scalpel is for a carefully controlled clean
environment and precision cutting on the millimeter scale. The lumber mill is
for converting fresh cut trees into finished building materials and lots of
sawdust and waste cuttings.

Chuck writing his OKAD is a clean environment project. The only access to the
outside world is in the output tape layout files to be sent to the foundry.
Writing robust _user_ apps is a cat of different color.

Haven't seen any substantive comments from either Jeff or Chuck that said how
many lines of source code it took for the ITV web-browser and email client.
Bet that they were an order of magnitude larger than OKAD. And had to be. If a
user can do something, they will. Error checking routines have to be written
to cover all input and user generated algorithmic changes.
Chuck has expressed his view on errors[1], however Chuck did not write the ITV code from my understanding. 



colorForth is a world view, not a specific implementation. Look at the
different releases of colorForth from Chuck. There is no sacred structure.
Chuck changed the structure to fit his changing needs. _That_ is colorForth.
Optimally fitting a minimal logic set to fill the need, using two stacks,
functions, operators and operands.

My mention of a file manager was to make the point that 'colorForth', as used
colloquially in this forum, does not normally address the end 'user'. Yes,
there are methods for managing data objects. But there is no 'user'
consideration beyond "Don't do that".
I think Chuck has consideration for user. I don't think he would go to all the trouble of settting up web pages with 'user' manuals, ect. Of course the first users as such will be programmers, that is nature of the project, Chuck can not possibly provide every user application to fit every need, nor should he. 


A file manager is needed to manage files (an ordered data set) that are used
by a number of different apps and present it in a viewable structure that is
flexible enough to accomate more than one need. Optimally the 'files' need
to be accessable from outside of colorForth. And I have stupid days. Not the
days are stupid, I am. I need the file manager 'user' interface to protect me
from my self.

I went away from colorForth for over a year investigating real-world
applications. Trying to determine what is needed in an application to be
usable by computer-ignorant users. The result was a single floppy that
provided a linux OS kernel, networking and the X-window apps: text-mode web
browsing, managed email client, a graphical file manager, text editor and a
graphics engine/window manager. On the high-end of an acceptable size: one
floppy.

Now I have the information I need to take a minimal logic set, put a usable,
for me, programming interface on it and start building user, rather than
programmer, oriented apps.
Perhaps that is minimal for you, I won't argue otherwise. To me, it misses the spirit of colorForth which is challenging the status quo. Maybe colorForth in its published form is not ideal for the these communication/'user' tasks, but just because that may be so does not mean, for me, that I must adopt some other existing practice. Perhaps what I want does not yet exist, perhaps it needs to be created. I don't know how people take an operating system and language from 70's as sacred, but more than not this seems to be the case. 

Mark

[1] http://www.strangegizmo.com/forth/ColorForth/msg00910.html
    http://www.strangegizmo.com/forth/ColorForth/msg00921.html



Writing this response has helped me to become clearer on what colorForth is,
and isn't. And how to use it to suit my needs. Hope it helps you, also.

Thank you,
Regards,
Terry Loveall



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