Spreading the word

For a few months now, I have been watching a Yahoo group for the TI MSP430
family. Apparently there is nobody in that group using Forth! Considering
its advantages in an embedded systems environment, I find that rather
appalling.

While I doubt either Forth Inc. or MPE have particularly large advertising
budgets, they are the players who should be servicing the embedded systems
market. Unfortunately, it seems that they are up against a mindset that
there is only C and assembler.

While most of the questions to the Yahoo group could reasonably be answered
by RTFM, it is apparent that a lot of the posters have English as a second
language. Given the nature of the manuals, for them the manuals are not an
easy read and RTFM isn't an appropriate answer. The remaining questions
seem to relate either to difficulties in getting their chosen C compiler to
work for them or being unable to debug their latest chunk of C code. It
should be possible to attract the later group to Forth if only for the
interactive aspect. But the whole mindset seems to be 'there is only C and
assembler'. How does one get their attention for long enough to consider
Forth?

In the course of developing an analog gauge for an OLED display, I
implemented a scale-able clock as a test vehicle - it uses most of the same
words. Although I am a long long way from being an authority on Forth, I had
thought to try and write an article based on my development for submission
to a hobby type publication, but just my introduction almost exceeds their
preferred submission length. (The article would probably be too short for a
book - that nobody would buy anyway). Regardless, I am onsidering
continuing with documenting my development of the clock and posting it to
the Yahoo groups files in the hope that someone might read it and at least
take a look at Forth. Would I be wasting my time?

Bob Miller

Robert Miller wrote:
> For a few months now, I have been watching a Yahoo group for the TI MSP430
> family. Apparently there is nobody in that group using Forth! Considering
> its advantages in an embedded systems environment, I find that rather
> appalling.
>
> While I doubt either Forth Inc. or MPE have particularly large advertising
> budgets, they are the players who should be servicing the embedded systems
> market. Unfortunately, it seems that they are up against a mindset that
> there is only C and assembler.
>
> While most of the questions to the Yahoo group could reasonably be answered
> by RTFM, it is apparent that a lot of the posters have English as a second
> language. Given the nature of the manuals, for them the manuals are not an
> easy read and RTFM isn't an appropriate answer. The remaining questions
> seem to relate either to difficulties in getting their chosen C compiler to
> work for them or being unable to debug their latest chunk of C code. It
> should be possible to attract the later group to Forth if only for the
> interactive aspect. But the whole mindset seems to be 'there is only C and
> assembler'. How does one get their attention for long enough to consider
> Forth?

FORTH, Inc. has an excellent SwiftX for the MSP430, and it's been one of
our better sellers. Inasmuch as many MSP430 users are looking for
low-power solutions, SwiftX has a power-saving feature that
automatically goes to low-power mode when the chip is idle, waking up on
an interrupt. This requires minimal attention from the application
programmer (one instruction added to the interrupt routine), and results
in duty cycles of only a few microseconds.

For a number of years, we had a special section in TI's introductory CD
about SwiftX, with a link to download a free evaluation version. I
don't know if it's still on that CD or not.

> In the course of developing an analog gauge for an OLED display, I
> implemented a scale-able clock as a test vehicle - it uses most of the same
> words. Although I am a long long way from being an authority on Forth, I had
> thought to try and write an article based on my development for submission
> to a hobby type publication, but just my introduction almost exceeds their
> preferred submission length. (The article would probably be too short for a
> book - that nobody would buy anyway). Regardless, I am onsidering
> continuing with documenting my development of the clock and posting it to
> the Yahoo groups files in the hope that someone might read it and at least
> take a look at Forth. Would I be wasting my time?

There are a lot of on-line publications that like such things. Or, you
can just post it somewhere that you have access to and include a link in
messages from time to time. I'd be interested in seeing it.

Cheers,
Elizabeth

--
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc. +1 310.999.6784
5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
http://www.forth.com

"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
==================================================

On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 13:36:48 -0400, "Robert Miller"
<rsmiller@compmore.net> wrote:

>While I doubt either Forth Inc. or MPE have particularly large advertising
>budgets, they are the players who should be servicing the embedded systems
>market. Unfortunately, it seems that they are up against a mindset that
>there is only C and assembler.
....
>The remaining questions
>seem to relate either to difficulties in getting their chosen C compiler to
>work for them or being unable to debug their latest chunk of C code. It
>should be possible to attract the later group to Forth if only for the
>interactive aspect.

You're actually asking a series of questions here, including
1) How do you make Forth socially acceptable?
2) How do you get people to try Forth?

The audience to address in the first is not necessarly the
audience to address in the second. The first question is
actually the easier - people are much more accepting of
other languages now than they were a few years ago, possibly
because the web world uses lots of them.

My advice is not to claim too much and to recognise that C
is the lingua franca of programming languages just as broken
English is now the lingua franca of spoken languages.

Also make sure that you have numbers and theory to back up
your assertions.

Stephen


--
Stephen Pelc, stephenXXX@mpeforth.com
MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time
133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
tel: +44 (0)23 8063 1441, fax: +44 (0)23 8033 9691
web: http://www.mpeforth.com - free VFX Forth downloads

"Elizabeth D Rather" <erather@forth.com> wrote in message
news:a9SdnW6gnNpz61zVnZ2dnUVZ_q_inZ2d@supernews.co m...
> Robert Miller wrote:
>> For a few months now, I have been watching a Yahoo group for the TI
>> MSP430 family. Apparently there is nobody in that group using Forth!
>> Considering its advantages in an embedded systems environment, I find
>> that rather appalling.
>>
>> While I doubt either Forth Inc. or MPE have particularly large
>> advertising budgets, they are the players who should be servicing the
>> embedded systems market. Unfortunately, it seems that they are up
>> against a mindset that there is only C and assembler.
>>
>> While most of the questions to the Yahoo group could reasonably be
>> answered by RTFM, it is apparent that a lot of the posters have English
>> as a second language. Given the nature of the manuals, for them the
>> manuals are not an easy read and RTFM isn't an appropriate answer. The
>> remaining questions seem to relate either to difficulties in getting
>> their chosen C compiler to work for them or being unable to debug their
>> latest chunk of C code. It should be possible to attract the later group
>> to Forth if only for the interactive aspect. But the whole mindset seems
>> to be 'there is only C and assembler'. How does one get their attention
>> for long enough to consider Forth?
>
> FORTH, Inc. has an excellent SwiftX for the MSP430, and it's been one of
> our better sellers. Inasmuch as many MSP430 users are looking for
> low-power solutions, SwiftX has a power-saving feature that automatically
> goes to low-power mode when the chip is idle, waking up on an interrupt.
> This requires minimal attention from the application programmer (one
> instruction added to the interrupt routine), and results in duty cycles of
> only a few microseconds.
>

I am a satisfied user of SwiftX. In the MSP430 User's Group on Yahoo, I see
a lot of frustrated users of C. This should translate to a marketing
opportunity, for Forth Inc. and MPE.

> For a number of years, we had a special section in TI's introductory CD
> about SwiftX, with a link to download a free evaluation version. I don't
> know if it's still on that CD or not.
>

After an absence of over 25 years, I rediscovered Forth Inc. through a link
on the TI website.

>> In the course of developing an analog gauge for an OLED display, I
>> implemented a scale-able clock as a test vehicle - it uses most of the
>> same words. Although I am a long long way from being an authority on
>> Forth, I had thought to try and write an article based on my development
>> for submission to a hobby type publication, but just my introduction
>> almost exceeds their preferred submission length. (The article would
>> probably be too short for a book - that nobody would buy anyway).
>> Regardless, I am onsidering continuing with documenting my development of
>> the clock and posting it to the Yahoo groups files in the hope that
>> someone might read it and at least take a look at Forth. Would I be
>> wasting my time?
>
> There are a lot of on-line publications that like such things. Or, you
> can just post it somewhere that you have access to and include a link in
> messages from time to time. I'd be interested in seeing it.
>
> Cheers,
> Elizabeth
>
> --
> ==================================================
> Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
> FORTH Inc. +1 310.999.6784
> 5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
> Los Angeles, CA 90045
> http://www.forth.com
>
> "Forth-based products and Services for real-time
> applications since 1973."
> ==================================================

"Stephen Pelc" <stephenXXX@mpeforth.com> wrote in message
news:48c29da7.884407687@192.168.0.50...
> On Fri, 5 Sep 2008 13:36:48 -0400, "Robert Miller"
> <rsmiller@compmore.net> wrote:
>
>>While I doubt either Forth Inc. or MPE have particularly large advertising
>>budgets, they are the players who should be servicing the embedded systems
>>market. Unfortunately, it seems that they are up against a mindset that
>>there is only C and assembler.
> ...
>>The remaining questions
>>seem to relate either to difficulties in getting their chosen C compiler
>>to
>>work for them or being unable to debug their latest chunk of C code. It
>>should be possible to attract the later group to Forth if only for the
>>interactive aspect.
>
> You're actually asking a series of questions here, including
> 1) How do you make Forth socially acceptable?
> 2) How do you get people to try Forth?
>

Worse than being not socially acceptable, I get the sense that most people
programming for embedded applications have simply never even heard of Forth.
As far as those on the MSP430 Users group are concerned the only options
seem to be C and assembler.

As far as getting people to try Forth, I think that the first step is to
make them a)aware that there is something that might better suit their needs
and b) how it might be better. That is where magazine articles authored by
current users might be helpful. A deeper question is why would current users
bother to write such articles. Magazines don't pay very well for the stuff
that fills the space between the advertisements. There are quite a few
people here who are quite dedicated to the language, perhaps we need more
who are dedicated to its use.

> The audience to address in the first is not necessarly the
> audience to address in the second. The first question is
> actually the easier - people are much more accepting of
> other languages now than they were a few years ago, possibly
> because the web world uses lots of them.
>

The audience for the first question is probably management. They have to
see benefits to the bottom line in order to even consider changing. In my
experience, too many software managers have little or no actual hands-on
experience. They took a class in C in university, so to them that is
obviously the language of choice.

> My advice is not to claim too much and to recognise that C
> is the lingua franca of programming languages just as broken
> English is now the lingua franca of spoken languages.
>

BEGIN RANT {
If our political and corporate leaders don't soon smarten up, Chinese will
become the lingua franca of spoken languages.
} END RANT

I'm really not too sure what your point is here. I don't believe I have
made any claims, let alone having claimed too much. Simply put, Forth fits
nicely with the way I like to work - an iterative try it and see approach.
Looking at the questions asked on the MSP430 Users group, I get the sense
that a lot of the questions asked there would quickly yield to such a try it
and see approach. Forth, or at least SwiftX, allows that. Read the manual,
write the registers, see what happens, write the function once you've
figured out what to do. As a test engineer, I've traversed the code-compile
& link - download - debug loop with C far too many times - though usually in
a windows based environment. Lingua franca or not, in my opinion, C is a
lousy language when you need to get close to the hardware - particularly
with new designs that may not work quite as advertised or might not be well
documented.

> Also make sure that you have numbers and theory to back up
> your assertions.
>

I'm afraid you've really lost me here. I have no idea what numbers, theory,
and assertions you are referring to.

> Stephen
>
>
> --
> Stephen Pelc, stephenXXX@mpeforth.com
> MicroProcessor Engineering Ltd - More Real, Less Time
> 133 Hill Lane, Southampton SO15 5AF, England
> tel: +44 (0)23 8063 1441, fax: +44 (0)23 8033 9691
> web: http://www.mpeforth.com - free VFX Forth downloads

Robert Miller wrote:
> "Elizabeth D Rather" <erather@forth.com> wrote in message
> news:a9SdnW6gnNpz61zVnZ2dnUVZ_q_inZ2d@supernews.co m...
>> Robert Miller wrote:
....
>>> While most of the questions to the Yahoo group could reasonably be
>>> answered by RTFM, it is apparent that a lot of the posters have English
>>> as a second language. Given the nature of the manuals, for them the
>>> manuals are not an easy read and RTFM isn't an appropriate answer. The
>>> remaining questions seem to relate either to difficulties in getting
>>> their chosen C compiler to work for them or being unable to debug their
>>> latest chunk of C code. It should be possible to attract the later group
>>> to Forth if only for the interactive aspect. But the whole mindset seems
>>> to be 'there is only C and assembler'. How does one get their attention
>>> for long enough to consider Forth?
>> FORTH, Inc. has an excellent SwiftX for the MSP430, and it's been one of
>> our better sellers. Inasmuch as many MSP430 users are looking for
>> low-power solutions, SwiftX has a power-saving feature that automatically
>> goes to low-power mode when the chip is idle, waking up on an interrupt.
>> This requires minimal attention from the application programmer (one
>> instruction added to the interrupt routine), and results in duty cycles of
>> only a few microseconds.
>
> I am a satisfied user of SwiftX. In the MSP430 User's Group on Yahoo, I see
> a lot of frustrated users of C. This should translate to a marketing
> opportunity, for Forth Inc. and MPE.

I hope you take some opportunities to describe your successes with Forth
on that group. A testimony from a satisfied user is worth $1M in
advertising or messages from a vendor.

>> For a number of years, we had a special section in TI's introductory CD
>> about SwiftX, with a link to download a free evaluation version. I don't
>> know if it's still on that CD or not.
>>
>
> After an absence of over 25 years, I rediscovered Forth Inc. through a link
> on the TI website.

Yay! Welcome back! And thanks for the nice words.

Cheers,
Elizabeth

--
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc. +1 310.999.6784
5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
http://www.forth.com

"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
==================================================

Robert Miller wrote:
> "Stephen Pelc" <stephenXXX@mpeforth.com> wrote in message
....
> I'm really not too sure what your point is here. I don't believe I have
> made any claims, let alone having claimed too much. Simply put, Forth fits
> nicely with the way I like to work - an iterative try it and see approach.
> Looking at the questions asked on the MSP430 Users group, I get the sense
> that a lot of the questions asked there would quickly yield to such a try it
> and see approach. Forth, or at least SwiftX, allows that. Read the manual,
> write the registers, see what happens, write the function once you've
> figured out what to do. As a test engineer, I've traversed the code-compile
> & link - download - debug loop with C far too many times - though usually in
> a windows based environment. Lingua franca or not, in my opinion, C is a
> lousy language when you need to get close to the hardware - particularly
> with new designs that may not work quite as advertised or might not be well
> documented.

I hope you say so in the group. As I said in my other post, real user
experiences carry a lot more weight than anything Stephen or I could
possibly say. The very description in your paragraph above is what they
need to see.

If everyone here who is successfully using some (any) version of Forth
spoke up in whatever forums their colleagues frequent, we'd see the use
of Forth growing significantly.

>> Also make sure that you have numbers and theory to back up
>> your assertions.
>>
>
> I'm afraid you've really lost me here. I have no idea what numbers, theory,
> and assertions you are referring to.

I believe he means, "It took only x days to do this in Forth, which
always took me y weeks in C" or "this function only takes n bytes in
Forth, whereas the C version took m bytes". Much more effective than
just "Forth is easier to use" and "Forth makes smaller programs".

Cheers,
Elizabeth

--
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc. +1 310.999.6784
5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
http://www.forth.com

"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
==================================================