Re: [Fwd: Anyone programming Windows apps in Forth?]

It's been my experience that outside of games, and a few other very
user intensive applications, an applications logic is pretty
independant of the user interface. One of the really liberating
technologies of the last decade is html. It completely divorces the
logic from the display. The application can be written in any
language that can communicate in text. I've found Forth to be quite
good at that.

HTML is also quite stable. The most obnoxious MS policy is to
literally require things to be rewritten every few years in a new
language. It means that for a non-trivial app just as the bugs are
finally being laid to rest the source has to once again be opened up
and new bugs inserted. Writing to a spec like HTML uncouples the
program from the display and the most onerous windows calls, and
helps to break that cycle.

MS is terrified of this approach. Every aspect of the Windows API is
tightly coupled with the application. It means that moving programs
from windows to unix to whatever is expensive. It keeps everyone
locked into their stuff, maximizing their profit, while maximizing
our expenses. C# .NET is just the latest incarnation of this lock
in.

An enormous number of applications can easily live in the GET
process POST model of HTML. Current browsers have plenty of
facilities for dynamic displays, and continuous connections, for the
more dynamic apps. The HTTP standard is really not that difficult to
work with. The rest of the OS interface, mostly task control, and
data files is already pretty much covered with Forth, and easily
"wrapped"

Even the real time control apps that I have worked with would be
completely happy, for the most part, using this model for the
interface.

The original forths were designed to communicate via terminals. I
submit that the next generation should communicate via browsers.

Gene

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Received on Fri Jan 11 2002 - 10:04:50 PST