I think I read about Forth influencing Smalltalkers on the c2 wiki somewhere - IIRC, it had more to do with the problem solving approach than the language itsel

I think I read about Forth influencing Smalltalkers on the c2 wiki somewhere - IIRC, it had more to do with the problem solving approach than the language itself. I could be wrong, though. Edit: Found one reference - "It must have been ten years ago that I tried to explain the essence of Smalltalk to my brother, a Forth programmer. We found common ground by programming -- one day in Forth, another in Smalltalk. In Forth we wrote the essential Smalltalk: object identity and method dispatch; in Smalltalk we wrote the essential Forth: dictionary, words and builds-does. We both showed off our respective environments with great skill, pride and confidence. Oh, if only all programming could be so educational. -- WardCunningham". (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ForthInSmalltalk http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ForthInSmalltalk) So yes, Ward Cunningham knew Forth, for one. As for other "great small, regular languages", there's also ML, Prolog, and SNOBOL. I haven't used SNOBOL for anything, but it AFAICT it introduced pattern matching, so it's been pretty influential. There's probably more good candidates in HOPL I and II. Maybe also awk. (And yes - the original version of the "invented" sentence was positively unctuous. ;) )