| > We can write a compiler for a higher level language which compiles to ANS Forth, one that is considerably safe You are better off targeting some bytecode VM rather than targeting the Forth language itself. You can target for instance Lua Bytecode and still have all of the benefits. > Type, arity and other checking is not analogous to training wheels for beginners. Nobody believes nonsense like this once they are out of their programming puberty. I suspect you wouldn't say that in an interview, if you actually wanted the job. Well I used to believe it was nonsense too. Maybe I'm older that you. Or maybe I was more curious. I would definitely mention the fact I can program in a point-free, type-less language. That's an additional skill, not a hindrance. I didn't have the chance to test this because I already have a programming job (where I use Forth for personal supporting tools that help dealing with the peculiarities of embedded systems or with the shortcomings of our official software - but don't tell anyone). What I wouldn't do is trying to sell something like Forth to an unknown team for an unknown project. > If you're getting a "segfault" it's because you're running on a virtual memory system (likely written for you in a considerable amount of C). Actually yes, it assumes the processor has at least a MMU (virtual memory technically is an additional feature that's often built on MMU). If the CPU doesn't have a MMU, the virtual machine can perform some checks on the pointers (e.g. memory alignment if the CPU requires it). At my current level of sloppiness that's something that could be helpful if really I can't fix my bad habits. > If you're having [segfaults because of] trivial function arity mismatch, you can't simultaneously believe that you're working in a higher level language on par with Common Lisp or Scheme, or even ANSI C. I think I did say that Forth is indeed a low-level language. I have no problem with that, because "low-level language" doesn't mean "lesser language" to me. |