Forth is primarily focused on micro-controllers, although it can be used on desktop computers. Factor is primarily focused on desktop computers, although it can be used on micro-controllers (a 32-bit chip running embedded Linux).
My MFX Forth cross-compiler was for the MiniForth chip, which was used for controlling a laser-etching machine. With a laser etcher, you have to calculate quickly. You can not let your laser sit in one place while you perform some calculations, because the laser will burn a big hole in that place --- the laser has to be moving steadily in order to burn a nice smooth line into whatever you are etching --- it can't go slower when drawing curves rather than straight lines. I think that it is fair to say that Factor will never be used for real-time applications like this, no matter how fast the 32-bit processors become. Forth can be extremely fast, especially when running on custom hardware such as the MiniForth chip. Also, those 32-bit processors cost an order of magnitude more than 16-bit chips such as the MiniForth. Our competition was using a 68020 and the C language and they failed badly because of speed problems and had to give up the project, losing all of the money that they had invested in it. That kind of catastrophic failure does happen sometimes in the computer programming business. Before I was employed at Forth, I worked as a C++ programmer. We had a project that went badly. The boss refused to give the customers back their money, telling them that he would deliver the product "real soon now." Then one day he showed up at work in a wheelchair with his leg twisted around backwards, and he said that he had decided to give the customers back their money after all, but the bad news was that he was also going to lay off over half of his employees. So I left, and I got hired down the street as a Forth programmer. I haven't programmed in C++ since, and I don't miss it. On the other hand, if you need to write a quick one-off program under Linux, you can likely get it written in hours using Factor, compared to days using Forth. If it involves something like XML that Factor has a library for and Forth doesn't, then the time difference would be even more extreme (assuming that you've already figured out how Factor's XML library works, which I haven't). > Message: 5 > Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:34:42 -0500 > From: Slava Pestov <sl...@factorcode.org> > Subject: Re: [Factor-talk] New here > To: factor-talk@lists.sourceforge.net > Message-ID: > <806f58f20906201134s3df1bddcu59e7df9cb1008...@mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 4:25 AM, Emeka<emekami...@gmail.com> wrote: >> What I still need? to get cleared is the difference between Factor and >> Forth? > > Two different languages -- its like C versus Java. Forth is low level > and close to the machine, Factor is higher level, with automatic > memory management, a large library, etc. > > Slava ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Are you an open source citizen? Join us for the Open Source Bridge conference! Portland, OR, June 17-19. Two days of sessions, one day of unconference: $250. Need another reason to go? 24-hour hacker lounge. Register today! http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;215844324;13503038;v?http://opensourcebridge.org _______________________________________________ Factor-talk mailing list Factor-talk@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/factor-talk
