[jwilliams]

Eons ago as an embedded programmer I came to respect Forth. I encountered numerous situations where using Forth led to a much smaller footprint (size in particular) -- Why? For exactly the reasons that Chuck Moore espouses here; you are writing a purpose-built VM from the hardware up.

Even then I don't agree that portability/abstraction isn't important - it's got the potential to be an extremely reductionist position. Instead I'd argue it's incredibly expensive and should be treated as such.

[nickpsecurity]

"Instead I'd argue it's incredibly expensive and should be treated as such."

Using a cross-platform framework isn't incredibly expensive in time or performance cost. It's done by one-person projects and large businesses alike. There's issues but that's way overstating it.

Then, there were 4GL's like Lansa and Windev that made it easier to do than creating non-portable, native applications. Those weren't used for performance-sensitive code, though. Mostly business apps.

[jwilliams]

I wasn't being specific enough - I meant expensive in the most general sense. e.g. An abstraction is a cost not only in terms of (potential) performance, but developer headspace, etc, etc.

The right number of abstractions is very powerful. Too many any you'll sink under the weight of them.