Subject:
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Re: Thought on pbForth
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics.rcx.pbforth
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Date:
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Thu, 20 Apr 2000 14:05:32 GMT
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Reply-To:
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sjm@judgement(avoidspam).com
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Viewed:
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1389 times
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Ralph Hempel writes:
> > I've been doing embedded realtime software for
> > over 20 years.
>
> Sounds like you've got lots of expreince with different
> paradigms, which is one of the most important aspects
> of being a good designer....
My definition of a software professional is one that can use any
language and any programming style as required to solve the problem
requirements. When I change someone elses code I pride myself in being
able to make the changes such that you can't detect them by style
alone. This flexibility should extend to operating systems and even
editors. :)
In its early days Byte magazine had an edition dedicated to the
editors of the time. It suggested that people's opinions of editors
was driven by what they called the baby duck syndrome, i.e. the first
thing a baby duck sees it thinks is its mother. This is called
imprinting as you probably know. The article suggested that people
imprint on their first editor. I think most of these holy wars are
between people imprinted on different languages/OS/editors and mistake
their imprinting for objective opinion.
> > If you insist on the edit/compile/download/run
> > cycle then this language is probably not for you. I
> > prefer the diddle/diddle/diddle/edit/compile/download/diddle
> > model for learning how to match code to my robots physical
> > properties.
>
> Can I use this description of the model on my website? :-)
Sure.
> > What floors me is how anyone could complain about any of
> > these. If you don't like it be happy you have choices.
> > Choose the language that matches your personal needs,
> > abilities and habits but don't say the others are wrong
> > because they don't suit you. It may very well be that
> > the defect is in your understanding.
> >
> > I hope pbFORTH has a long and glorious life. It didn't
> > surprise me to find it. FORTH runs everywhere. There is
> > a reason.
>
> Well said. There is (as I'm sure you are aware) a generation
> of programmers that never wrote thier own assembler or woke
> up a parent or sibling to show them an LED flashing on a KIM-1
> single board computer.
My tour de force was moving a single segment around the outside of the
KIM-1 display like a little bug walking around. It took about 30 bytes
of hand assembled and hand entered code.
I still have my KIM-1 including the full documentation. That was an
excellent CS training system. It was possible to understand the KIM-1
completely. It had all of the components of a computer system, console
I/O, RAM, persistant storage plus some device I/O. The code monitor
(in source form in the manual) was a primitive but complete OS. The
schematic (in wall poster form) was simple enough for non EE's to
figure out. Even the requirement for hand assembly and machine code
entry was good since it tought clearly the relationship between machine
code and assembler.
The difference between the KIM-1 and my Windows/Linux Pentium is
merely a matter of degree.
The KIM-1 was all the computer education I ever had. (I studied
physics in school.) I feel sorry for kids today who have to try to
understand a modern desktop computer/OS from scratch. They can't help
but get a feeling that "there are mysteries" beyond their
comprehension.
> Hopefully pbForth will bring some of the thrills back.
When people ask me for advice about how to get into computers I tell
them to get the Mindstorms and start playing. It is the closest thing
to that original thrill that I have ever seen. If they have the true
calling they can figure out the rest from there.
PS. You've got me intrigued. What are the new wonderful things coming?
A new release in the works?
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | RE: Thought on pbForth
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| (...) I _knew it_!! But I guess now I'm guilty of preaching to the choir... (...) This is EXACTLY what makes the RCX an ideal entry to computing. Nobody could sell something like a VIC-20 as an entry level to computing. But this is exactly what we (...) (24 years ago, 21-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics.rcx.pbforth)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | RE: Thought on pbForth
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| (...) Steve, welcome to LugNet and this group specifically. The pbForth group has been a bit sparse lately, but rest assured good things will happen soon. (...) Sounds like you've got lots of expreince with different paradigms, which is one of the (...) (24 years ago, 20-Apr-00, to lugnet.robotics.rcx.pbforth)
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