Sorry for the belated response, but for a sense of closure, so to speak, I'll add that I agree with your general assessment. Both languages started with a simple core that allowed developers to take some basic ideas and see just how far they could go with them. It just didn't occur to me to describe that as "opposite".
Interestingly, both languages wound up with a schism of framework enthusiasts (CLOS & "big Forths") vs. minimalists (Scheme & Moore loyalists (for want of a better term)).
As an aside, your bunch of data example would run afoul of Forth catechism. The normal response would be to use a dictionary address or even address and offset to access a data structure. Antagonism to deep use of the data stack is so prevalent that Moore eventually reached the point with his chip designs of implementing the top of stack as a couple of on-chip registers -- if what you want isn't within the top couple of stack entries, so the logic goes, then you've failed to factor your design properly. Perhaps this preoccupation with very low level operations is an aspect where Forth programming might be considered the opposite of normal Lisp programming.
I wish HN would give me the option of bubbling up old threads that got new comments.
And you are right about my example with the deep stack. I probably did not remember correctly. The variable array was probably something with passing around an address plus length on the stack---while Lispers prefer that as one object.
Interestingly, both languages wound up with a schism of framework enthusiasts (CLOS & "big Forths") vs. minimalists (Scheme & Moore loyalists (for want of a better term)).
As an aside, your bunch of data example would run afoul of Forth catechism. The normal response would be to use a dictionary address or even address and offset to access a data structure. Antagonism to deep use of the data stack is so prevalent that Moore eventually reached the point with his chip designs of implementing the top of stack as a couple of on-chip registers -- if what you want isn't within the top couple of stack entries, so the logic goes, then you've failed to factor your design properly. Perhaps this preoccupation with very low level operations is an aspect where Forth programming might be considered the opposite of normal Lisp programming.