OT: on IDEs and code writing on steroids

[Georg Wrede]

bearophile wrote:
> Walter Bright:
>> The 6502 is an 8 bit processor, the 8088 is 16 bits. All 8 bit 
>> processors were a terrible fit for C, which was designed for 16 bit
>>  CPUs. Everyone who coded professional apps for the 6502, 6800,
>> 8080 and Z80 (all 8 bit CPUs) wrote in assembler. (Including
>> myself.)
> 
> Forth interpreters can be very small, it's a very flexible language,
> you can metaprogram it almost as Lisp, and if implemented well it can
> be efficient (surely more than interpreter Basic, but less than
> handwritten asm. You can have an optimizing Forth in probably less
> than 4-5 KB).
> 
> But the people was waiting/asking for the Basic Language, most people
> didn't know Forth, Basic was common in schools, so Basic was the
> language shipped inside the machine, instead of Forth: 
> http://www.npsnet.com/danf/cbm/languages.html#FORTH
> 
> The Commodore 64 with built-in Forth instead of Basic may have driven
> computer science in a quite different direction.
> 
> Do you agree?

Forth isn't exactly user friendly, whereas any housewife could at least 
pretend to almost understand some of Daddy's Basic code. :-)

C-64 with Forth, no market.

An example is HP. They made a super cool calculator (almost computer) 
that was Forth programmable. Few bought it, and even fewer bothered to 
program in Forth. Even the 28S that I've got, has a Forth dialect, but 
most people only did algebra stuff on it.

Bootstrapping an new system, that's where Forth really shines. But 
today's programmers are so set in the collective mindset of the popular 
programming languages, that the change of perspective Forth requires, 
will feel too tedious. People become lazy.

But had the C-64 come with Simon's Basic (which was an expensive add-on 
that very few bought, mostly because they didn't understand its vast 
difference to "regular" Basic), less people would have quit programming 
at the 1000 line mark. They just thought it was hard, or that they 
weren't smart enough.

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Heck, I just remembered, I've got a Forth cartridge for the VIC-20 
somewhere! Oh, maybe some rainy day I'll do some time travel!! :-)