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Nf: A minimal programming language for a custom x64 OS, inspired by Forth

63 points by vmorgulis 11y ago

vmorgulis 11y ago
Screenshots: https://bitbucket.org/qx89l4/os64/src/10f4377a9250b9c89878629bf57d43990d8630d5?at=master https://bitbucket.org/qx89l4/os64/src/10f4377a9250b9c8987862...
TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
I have also been working on a stack-oriented language, but progress ground to a halt: https://github.com/TazeTSchnitzel/Firth https://github.com/TazeTSchnitzel/Firth
eggy 11y ago
Cool, I will have to check this out. I am currently playing with PilOS, a 64-bit PicoLisp running on bare metal (in Qemu for me right now). How does your forth-like language and bytecode compare to Retro and the Neko bytecode?
reidrac 11y ago
Looking at the stack manipulation examples I had a terrible flashback of the time when I had to program in Postscript to print (generate?) labels with barcodes :S It is a quite interesting approach, and probably simpler than porting an existing compiler to a custom OS. The downside is that there's no software written in the new language, compared with the existing software written in Forth (perhaps? how portable is that software?).
vmorgulis 11y ago
From an OSDev thread: http://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?p=249616#p249616 http://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?p=249616#p249616
kwhitefoot 11y ago
Why not use Forth? I mean what is the justification for yet another language, what makes it worth having, and learning?
- klibertp 11y ago
  > what is the justification for yet another language, what makes it worth having, and learning? Why do you think a new language needs any of that? It needs to be fun to use and hack on, that's all. Honestly, I'm so tired with people having problems with "yet another language". Such people make polyglot programming much less viable, despite obvious benefits to this approach and I think it's a big loss for the industry. Instead of asking "why is it worth having" a new language you should just go and skim its code (disclaimer: I didn't do this yet myself in this case). And if don't want to do it you should stop commenting on new, in development languages. Stick to established languages you know and don't bother with new languages. If you need to know "why is it worth learning" then it's obvious that new languages are not for you. That's because the answer to this question is also obvious: for fun! EDIT: I realized that my post may sound a bit rude. I don't have the time to rewrite it, but I want to stress that I didn't intend for it to sound like this.

63 points by vmorgulis 11y ago

Screenshots: https://bitbucket.org/qx89l4/os64/src/10f4377a9250b9c89878629bf57d43990d8630d5?at=master https://bitbucket.org/qx89l4/os64/src/10f4377a9250b9c8987862...

TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago

I have also been working on a stack-oriented language, but progress ground to a halt: https://github.com/TazeTSchnitzel/Firth https://github.com/TazeTSchnitzel/Firth

eggy 11y ago

Cool, I will have to check this out. I am currently playing with PilOS, a 64-bit PicoLisp running on bare metal (in Qemu for me right now). How does your forth-like language and bytecode compare to Retro and the Neko bytecode?

reidrac 11y ago

Looking at the stack manipulation examples I had a terrible flashback of the time when I had to program in Postscript to print (generate?) labels with barcodes :S It is a quite interesting approach, and probably simpler than porting an existing compiler to a custom OS. The downside is that there's no software written in the new language, compared with the existing software written in Forth (perhaps? how portable is that software?).

vmorgulis 11y ago

From an OSDev thread: http://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?p=249616#p249616 http://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?p=249616#p249616

kwhitefoot 11y ago

Why not use Forth? I mean what is the justification for yet another language, what makes it worth having, and learning?

klibertp 11y ago
> what is the justification for yet another language, what makes it worth having, and learning? Why do you think a new language needs any of that? It needs to be fun to use and hack on, that's all. Honestly, I'm so tired with people having problems with "yet another language". Such people make polyglot programming much less viable, despite obvious benefits to this approach and I think it's a big loss for the industry. Instead of asking "why is it worth having" a new language you should just go and skim its code (disclaimer: I didn't do this yet myself in this case). And if don't want to do it you should stop commenting on new, in development languages. Stick to established languages you know and don't bother with new languages. If you need to know "why is it worth learning" then it's obvious that new languages are not for you. That's because the answer to this question is also obvious: for fun! EDIT: I realized that my post may sound a bit rude. I don't have the time to rewrite it, but I want to stress that I didn't intend for it to sound like this.