way OT: IITRAN was Re: RX02 and intel hex file tools

Hi It is interesting that one of Forth's main virtues is saving large projects that get lost in unmanageable 'C' code. It has been brought in several times to save software projects that were just running on and on. As Richard mentions, it is an un-typed language. For many, this puts it in a lower class of programming language. In Forth, you have the freedom to pass any parameter as an address, even if it is totally in error. It's main advantage for larger projects is that one transforms the language into a language that makes sense for that project. One can even add type checking if it is required. It also tends to help the programmer write smaller simpler modular code that is more easily tested and debugged. This can significantly increase the output of the programmer for large projects. Since the language is often redefined around the project, it often requires strong project leadership or, when using a large number of programmers, the programmers tend to run off into tangents that don't match the main flow of the project. It is also called a programmer amplifier. A good programmer will write better code but a bad programmer will write really bad code. It has typically been used in control applications but data base systems and many other applications have been written using it. Usually, it is used for prototyping of a project and later replaced by something like 'C' code to keep a more maintainable code. It isn't that the code is really any more difficult to maintain than other languages, it is just that it is so much different looking, it takes someone the is proficient in it to read and understand what is happening. Still well written code can be handle by almost anyone. One of the people I know wrote a piece of code to handle some form of encoding/decoding ( I forget which one ). When he handed the code in, the manager passed it back to him and said that he must have made a mistake. What the manager thought he'd gotten was a spec sheet for the encoding and not the code to do it. This is what is meant by transforming the language to the application. If all programmer's output looked like this, the concept of maintaining code would completely change. Well written code should read this well in any language but most languages get in the way and hide the application. Sorry for rant, it is just that of all the programming languages that I've ever used, I am the most productive in Forth. I use it for almost all of my home projects, when I'm not forced to use some other language. Dwight