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In the sense that there are no types (or only one, depending on how you look at it), that its inventor eschews standardization, that there are literally no keyw
by boomlinde 8y ago
In the sense that there are no types (or only one, depending on how you look at it), that its inventor eschews standardization, that there are literally no keywords and that the basic premise of the language is that it, the interpreter, the application and the compiler are the same thing, it's not at all opinionated.
You make an interesting point, but what you describe is about the only sense in which I'd respect calling Forth opinionated. In every other sense, walking into a new Forth application is potentially like walking into a new language.
As a good example of how unopinionated it is, here are the jonesforth implementations of the IF and THEN words:
: IF IMMEDIATE ' 0BRANCH , HERE @ 0 , ;
: THEN IMMEDIATE DUP HERE @ SWAP - SWAP ! ;
Don't need those words? Don't implement them and make your own branching abstraction. Feel like you spend too much time juggling the stack? Implement named parameters and local variables. Need records or structs? Do it. Need an object system? Go for it.
- aassddffasdf 8y ago> walking into a new Forth application is potentially like walking into a new language This is how walking into an application in any language (but yes especially Forth and Lisp(s)) is supposed to be but most are doing it wrong by repeating a lot of boilerplate.
- snaky 8y agoIf you have a boilerplate in your Forth, you are doing it wrong, it seems. > Forth is not the language. Forth the language captures nothing, it's a moving target. Chuck Moore constantly tweaks the language and largely dismisses the ANS standard as rooted in the past and bloated. Forth is the approach to engineering aiming to produce as small, simple and optimal system as possible, by shaving off as many requirements of every imaginable kind as you can. > That's why its metaprogramming is so amazingly compact. It's similar to Lisp's metaprogramming in much the same way bacterial genetic code is similar to that of humans – both reproduce. Humans also do many other things that bacteria can't (…No compatibility. No files. No operating system). And have a ton of useless junk in their DNA, their bodies and their habitat. > Bacteria have no junk in their DNA. Junk slows down the copying of the DNA which creates a reproduction bottleneck so junk mutations can't compete. If it can be eliminated, it should. Bacteria are small, simple, optimal systems, with as many requirements shaved off as possible. https://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.html https://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines...
- aassddffasdf 8y agoNo shit. That's what I said. Boilerplate in any language is "doing it wrong".
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ddingus 8y agoWant to redirect output? Redefine a word...