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Same here. I’ve been down the rabbit hole of Forth and embedded systems for about a month now. I’ve been learning more and more every night since I got started

Same here. I’ve been down the rabbit hole of Forth and embedded systems for about a month now. I’ve been learning more and more every night since I got started in it, and it has also consumed entire weekends. It’s fascinating. The “hook” for me was seeing things like ifs and loops being written in Forth itself from simpler primitives. I’ve always been a fan of bootstrapping a general purpose computing environment from a small set of primitives, and Forth lets you do exactly that. > I’m bored of the internet and browsers. I want to have fun with software AND hardware I can 100% relate to that feeling. Discovering Forth has been therapeutic for me in a sense. I spend the day dealing with AWS and Java and logs and metrics for large distributed systems, and that brings me zero joy or motivation. I spend my work days looking forward to my time with Forth in the evening. I think it was CollapseOS that sent me down this rabbit hole :)

AQXt 6y ago
Here's an interesting article about the downsides of Forth: "My minimal stack of layers is – problem, software, hardware. People working on the problem (algorithms, UI, whatever) can't do software, not really. People doing software can't do hardware, not really. And people doing hardware can't do software, etc. The Forth way of focusing on just the problem you need to solve seems to more or less require that the same person or a very tightly united group focus on all three of these things, and pick the right algorithms, the right computer architecture, the right language, the right word size, etc. (...) So you need at least 3 teams, or people, or hats, that are to an extent ignorant about each other's work. Even if you're doing everything in-house, which, according to Jeff Fox, was essentially a precondition to "doing Forth". So there's another precondtion – having people being able to do what at least 3 people in their respective areas normally do, and concentrating on those 3 things at the same time. Doing the cross-layer global optimization. It's not how I work." https://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.html https://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines...
- dfischer 6y ago
  I can see that reasoning and these days my opinion there is that if one doesn’t understand the stack end to end then they’re contributing to an ever increasing risk of implosion. That’s largely where we are today in many sectors of society. Experts who only understand the nuances of a niche layer they’ve patched into a series of layers of indirection by the result of not taking the time to fully understand what one is working with from first principles or fundamentals. The OS’s of today are computation stacks that resemble something like bandaids and house of cards with people piling on intricate complexity without conceptual understanding that can be effectively reasoned about. I understand that simple is hard. However when one can reason about a system when it fits entirely in their head then they can extend it completely. I believe all systems should be this way. To have anything else is a risk of corruption or assimilation as the minority control a majority through complexity against time. Sorry I kind of went off on a tangent there. Tl:dr systems should fit in anyone’s ability to reason about it conceptually. Anything too complex is an attack vector and disaster waiting to happen.
  - Joker_vD 6y ago
    So. Do you understand, for example, the intricacies of x86 microcode and how its executed on all Intel microarchitechtures relevant today: from Sunny Bridge to Sandy Cove? I don't remember who said that, but it's a really smart observation: Civilization is not just the state of society when there are lots of smart professionals, orchestrated together to provide infrastructure, and tools, and goods, and services, it's a state of society when almost everyone routinely uses the fruits of labour of those professionals without even being aware of that labour. That's the point: that it Just Works™. You don't have to think about it.
    - arethuza 6y ago
      "In an urban society, everything connects. Each person's needs are fed by the skills of many others. Our lives are woven together in a fabric. But the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable." Hence the title of probably the scariest thing ever broadcast on TV: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/
    - 6y ago
- nomoreservices 6y ago
  I've read that post. It's effect on me was the opposite of what the author intended. That's where I first learned that Forth defines things like IF in Forth itself... and I totally got hooked on it.

AQXt 6y ago

Here's an interesting article about the downsides of Forth: "My minimal stack of layers is – problem, software, hardware. People working on the problem (algorithms, UI, whatever) can't do software, not really. People doing software can't do hardware, not really. And people doing hardware can't do software, etc. The Forth way of focusing on just the problem you need to solve seems to more or less require that the same person or a very tightly united group focus on all three of these things, and pick the right algorithms, the right computer architecture, the right language, the right word size, etc. (...) So you need at least 3 teams, or people, or hats, that are to an extent ignorant about each other's work. Even if you're doing everything in-house, which, according to Jeff Fox, was essentially a precondition to "doing Forth". So there's another precondtion – having people being able to do what at least 3 people in their respective areas normally do, and concentrating on those 3 things at the same time. Doing the cross-layer global optimization. It's not how I work." https://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines.html https://yosefk.com/blog/my-history-with-forth-stack-machines...

dfischer 6y ago
I can see that reasoning and these days my opinion there is that if one doesn’t understand the stack end to end then they’re contributing to an ever increasing risk of implosion. That’s largely where we are today in many sectors of society. Experts who only understand the nuances of a niche layer they’ve patched into a series of layers of indirection by the result of not taking the time to fully understand what one is working with from first principles or fundamentals. The OS’s of today are computation stacks that resemble something like bandaids and house of cards with people piling on intricate complexity without conceptual understanding that can be effectively reasoned about. I understand that simple is hard. However when one can reason about a system when it fits entirely in their head then they can extend it completely. I believe all systems should be this way. To have anything else is a risk of corruption or assimilation as the minority control a majority through complexity against time. Sorry I kind of went off on a tangent there. Tl:dr systems should fit in anyone’s ability to reason about it conceptually. Anything too complex is an attack vector and disaster waiting to happen.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  So. Do you understand, for example, the intricacies of x86 microcode and how its executed on all Intel microarchitechtures relevant today: from Sunny Bridge to Sandy Cove? I don't remember who said that, but it's a really smart observation: Civilization is not just the state of society when there are lots of smart professionals, orchestrated together to provide infrastructure, and tools, and goods, and services, it's a state of society when almost everyone routinely uses the fruits of labour of those professionals without even being aware of that labour. That's the point: that it Just Works™. You don't have to think about it.
  - arethuza 6y ago
    "In an urban society, everything connects. Each person's needs are fed by the skills of many others. Our lives are woven together in a fabric. But the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable." Hence the title of probably the scariest thing ever broadcast on TV: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/
  - 6y ago
nomoreservices 6y ago
I've read that post. It's effect on me was the opposite of what the author intended. That's where I first learned that Forth defines things like IF in Forth itself... and I totally got hooked on it.