Understanding What It's Like to Program in Forth (2008)
Sometimes I feel discussions on HN always go into the weeds with people going back and forth while losing sight of reality.<p>I used Forth professionally for well over a decade.  I made truckloads of money with the end products.  One of the companies I was involved with, which was 100% Forth, sold for just south of $20 million USD.<p>Customers don’t go to Home Depot to buy drill bits.  They go there to buy holes.<p>The world could not care less if solution A was coded in C, solution B in Forth and solution C using a keypad to enter machine code.  All they care about is the best solution at the best price.<p>I have always felt that the distinction between experienced and less experienced engineers is that those with experience focus on what matters —delivering value to customers— while the less experienced folk needlessly burn time on theory, languages, code editors and other stuff.<p>25 years ago I made over $500K with a small 6502 embedded system used to help control lab equipment during cancer research lab tests.  I made this box with a 6502, a couple of UARTS, a 2x16 LCD display and four pushbuttons.  The box sold for $2,000 each.  Sold piles of them.  The code was written in Forth.  The buyers could not care less.  Neither did I frankly.  I love Forth, but, at the end of the day, it’s just another tool.<p>Customers want holes.