>Neal - Thanks for posting about your Quartus Forth product. Now you've
>really done it: not only is all my time at work taken up with Palm
>programming (CW), but now I'll be sucked into that programming daze when
>away from the office (I promise, no programming while driving, really).
>Never played with Forth until last night, although I had read a few snippets
>about it over the years.
Being able to write real apps right on-board the device is addictive. One
of the best parts of having a development environment always on-hand is
that I can try new ideas as soon as I have them -- my development
productivity has gone up considerably as a result.
>I get the impression Forth is in its prime with low-level embedded
>applications, although it is purported to do anything one wants with typical
>programmer productivity claimed at 10 times faster than programming in C.
>Could one use it to efficiently write a typical "real world" large PalmOS
>business application requiring lots of UI, database tables, string
>manipulation, complex business logic, etc?
It takes a little time to become proficient in any new language, and Forth
encourages a new way of thinking that you may not already have under your
belt before it 'clicks in' -- but at that point the productivity estimates
are on the mark. It's a remarkably powerful and expressive language,
shaped by years of real-life use.
Quartus Forth can be used to develop everything from simple concept
protyping to large-scale projects.
>It would be an interesting project to port my little database engine over to
>Quartus Forth.
Let me know if you have any questions!
Neal Bridges
<http://www.interlog.com/~nbridges/> Home of Quartus Forth!
