stevan apter — 2006-06-29 21:42:26

a relatively mild-mannered rant ..

as far as i'm concerned, there are exactly two concatenative
languages: joy and factor.

1. those who are interested in the theory of such languages
should read manfred's papers, learn joy, and write code
to promote the state of our knowledge in this area. (Brent
Kirby's _theory of concatenative combinators_ is a fine
example of this.)

2. those who are interested in actually using a concatenative
language, or in the development side of things, should
turn to factor, a truly brilliant piece of work by slava
pestov. in my opinion, factor has a chance to become an
established, widely-used language, but not if everyone
interested in concatenative languages goes off to write
their own. first prove to yourself that you can't do
what you want in factor. chances are, slava's been there
and done that.

ok, now back to F ..

Christopher Diggins — 2006-06-29 21:47:54

Do you have any rationale for your declaration? Do you have a specific
definition of a "concatenative language" and an illustration of how other
languages (e.g. Cat) violate this definition?

On 6/29/06, stevan apter <sa@...> wrote:
>
> a relatively mild-mannered rant ..
>
> as far as i'm concerned, there are exactly two concatenative
> languages: joy and factor.
>
> 1. those who are interested in the theory of such languages
> should read manfred's papers, learn joy, and write code
> to promote the state of our knowledge in this area. (Brent
> Kirby's _theory of concatenative combinators_ is a fine
> example of this.)
>
> 2. those who are interested in actually using a concatenative
> language, or in the development side of things, should
> turn to factor, a truly brilliant piece of work by slava
> pestov. in my opinion, factor has a chance to become an
> established, widely-used language, but not if everyone
> interested in concatenative languages goes off to write
> their own. first prove to yourself that you can't do
> what you want in factor. chances are, slava's been there
> and done that.
>
> ok, now back to F ..
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

stevan apter — 2006-06-29 22:44:18

----- Original Message -----
From: "Christopher Diggins" <cdiggins@...>
To: <concatenative@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2006 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: [stack] rant

> Do you have any rationale for your declaration?

of course not -- it was a rant.

> Do you have a specific
> definition of a "concatenative language" and an illustration of how other
> languages (e.g. Cat) violate this definition?

my intention was to express an opinion -- a contentious
one, i'll admit. namely, anyone who wants to do real
work in (or on) a concatenative language should, in the
absence of a demonstation that the language is inadequate,
use either joy or factor. theoretical (use joy); practical
(use factor.)

take that as a vote of confidence in both of these languages.

>
> On 6/29/06, stevan apter <sa@...> wrote:
> >
> > a relatively mild-mannered rant ..
> >
> > as far as i'm concerned, there are exactly two concatenative
> > languages: joy and factor.
> >
> > 1. those who are interested in the theory of such languages
> > should read manfred's papers, learn joy, and write code
> > to promote the state of our knowledge in this area. (Brent
> > Kirby's _theory of concatenative combinators_ is a fine
> > example of this.)
> >
> > 2. those who are interested in actually using a concatenative
> > language, or in the development side of things, should
> > turn to factor, a truly brilliant piece of work by slava
> > pestov. in my opinion, factor has a chance to become an
> > established, widely-used language, but not if everyone
> > interested in concatenative languages goes off to write
> > their own. first prove to yourself that you can't do
> > what you want in factor. chances are, slava's been there
> > and done that.
> >
> > ok, now back to F ..
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

William Tanksley, Jr — 2006-06-30 14:13:59

stevan apter <sa@...> wrote:

> a relatively mild-mannered rant ..

Amusing, too.

> as far as i'm concerned, there are exactly two concatenative
> languages: joy and factor.

Chuck Moore is spinning... well, he's not dead. But if he were he'd be
spinning in his grave.

> 1. those who are interested in the theory of such languages
> should read manfred's papers, learn joy, and write code
> to promote the state of our knowledge in this area. (Brent
> Kirby's _theory of concatenative combinators_ is a fine
> example of this.)

Whether or not you're interested in the theory you should at least
look through Manfred's papers. They're a good read, and seriously
groundbreaking. I don't think Joy itself is an interesting language --
sorry, Manfred. Joy is merely the proof-of-concept for a few of
Manfred's theories. Unfortunately, however, it was developed without
knowledge of prior work on similar languages.

> 2. those who are interested in actually using a concatenative
> language, or in the development side of things, should
> turn to factor, a truly brilliant piece of work by slava
> pestov. in my opinion, factor has a chance to become an
> established, widely-used language, but not if everyone
> interested in concatenative languages goes off to write
> their own. first prove to yourself that you can't do
> what you want in factor. chances are, slava's been there
> and done that.

Factor is brilliant. It's much more important than any other johnny-come-lately

> ok, now back to F ..

Which, like many other johnny-come-lately languages, closely examines
a minor detail of language design much better than the other
languages. Just as (for example) strongForth examines static
typechecking of a concatenative language, and Forth applies
concatenative principles to practical concerns of a constrained
environment.

-Billy