5 ms·

In addition to other comments: Forth is a really cool language, but has the pitfall of trading time for space. It's a very lean language, and incredibly dynami

In addition to other comments: Forth is a really cool language, but has the pitfall of trading time for space. It's a very lean language, and incredibly dynamic, but its heavy reliance on jumps makes it run slowly on modern hardware and thrashes most branch predictors.

coliveira 9y ago
Modern CPUs are optimized for C code. This is not the fault of FORTH, but it certainly is a problem for its adoption.
- Karrot_Kream 9y ago
  Not really, modern Lisps have done a fine job optimizing performance. FORTH suffers from treating the hardware too granularly, and thus not being able to take advantage of any of the advances in hardware in the last 2 decades.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    There is no a priori reason FORTH can't take advantage of modern hardware, since in the extreme case the compiler can be completely replaced by redefining the meaning of ':' and ';'.
- throwaway7645 9y ago
  This is why Chuck Moore designed his own chips like GreenArrays I believe. There is no impedance mismatch between software and hardware and the entire thing is optimized for the problem domain and massively parallel. I'm sure you can get more speed out of C, but it no other language (even Lisp or Smalltalk) can the user understand the entirety of the system. Lisp machines and Smalltalk machines probably are about as close as possible, but I have zero experience with them personally. Perhaps the project to put PicoLisp on bare-metal qualifies if one uses a simple enough microcontroller as the language itself is about as simple as you can get a practical lisp.
- spelc 9y ago
  Over the last twenty years or so, I have written serious Forth code generators for six CPU architectures. There's only one code generation algorithm that's not regularly present in most Pasgol family compilers. The results are the VFX Forth systems at http://www.mpeforth.com http://www.mpeforth.com.
  - Karrot_Kream 9y ago
    I've looked over your products over the years and been super impressed by your results. Thanks for all your hard work!
astrobe_ 9y ago
The branch prediction problem is true for every language that doesn't JIT (pronounced: "cheat"). Furthermore, Forth is not limited to threaded code. You can have some simple code generation (subroutine threaded code+some primitive inlining) if you really want to prioritize speed. Finally, Forth is a simple language with simple implementations so it's often easy to add the primitive(s) you need in order to deal with the bottlenecks.

coliveira 9y ago

Modern CPUs are optimized for C code. This is not the fault of FORTH, but it certainly is a problem for its adoption.

Karrot_Kream 9y ago
Not really, modern Lisps have done a fine job optimizing performance. FORTH suffers from treating the hardware too granularly, and thus not being able to take advantage of any of the advances in hardware in the last 2 decades.
- yorwba 9y ago
  There is no a priori reason FORTH can't take advantage of modern hardware, since in the extreme case the compiler can be completely replaced by redefining the meaning of ':' and ';'.
throwaway7645 9y ago
This is why Chuck Moore designed his own chips like GreenArrays I believe. There is no impedance mismatch between software and hardware and the entire thing is optimized for the problem domain and massively parallel. I'm sure you can get more speed out of C, but it no other language (even Lisp or Smalltalk) can the user understand the entirety of the system. Lisp machines and Smalltalk machines probably are about as close as possible, but I have zero experience with them personally. Perhaps the project to put PicoLisp on bare-metal qualifies if one uses a simple enough microcontroller as the language itself is about as simple as you can get a practical lisp.
spelc 9y ago
Over the last twenty years or so, I have written serious Forth code generators for six CPU architectures. There's only one code generation algorithm that's not regularly present in most Pasgol family compilers. The results are the VFX Forth systems at http://www.mpeforth.com http://www.mpeforth.com.
- Karrot_Kream 9y ago
  I've looked over your products over the years and been super impressed by your results. Thanks for all your hard work!

astrobe_ 9y ago

The branch prediction problem is true for every language that doesn't JIT (pronounced: "cheat"). Furthermore, Forth is not limited to threaded code. You can have some simple code generation (subroutine threaded code+some primitive inlining) if you really want to prioritize speed. Finally, Forth is a simple language with simple implementations so it's often easy to add the primitive(s) you need in order to deal with the bottlenecks.