4 ms·

Porth, It's Like Forth but in Python

101 points by Alifatisk 4y ago

Alifatisk 4y ago
He moved the development from Github to Gitlab
- unixhero 4y ago
  Good move!
  - gymbeaux 4y ago
    Why’s that? Because Github is scraping repos for Copilot?
    - unixhero 4y ago
      No, because of Better features
      - gymbeaux 4y ago
        As far as I know, Github generally keeps up with Gitlab. For a while, I was on Gitlab because private repos were free, but since Microsoft purchased Github, Github has that too. Gitlab's own page about the differences between the two is somewhat biased[1]. Most of the features where "Gitlab wins", are niche and nice-to-haves at best. Mostly "scanning" features, and I'm sure they aren't free. Meanwhile, even Gitlab seems to recognize Gitlab is superior in at least one way (CodeSpaces). [1] https://about.gitlab.com/devops-tools/github-vs-gitlab/ https://about.gitlab.com/devops-tools/github-vs-gitlab/
omgmajk 4y ago
The youtube series is quite good for this, especially the first few episodes where he uses NASM to compile from Python instead of compiling Porth with Porth.
DonHopkins 4y ago
Not to be confused with Forthon.
- timbit42 4y ago
  So a Python interpreter implemented in Forth? That reminds me of some code I came across one time which was a BASIC implemented in Forth. It was less than 100 lines of code, which I thought was impressive.
  - lebuffon 4y ago
    I believe the first version of that interpreter was written by Charles Moore himself. "Lines" in Forth are rather fluid but I have a version here that is 154 lines when formatted as a text file rather than 1K disk blocks.
- 6177c40f 4y ago
  I read that initially as "Forthtran" and I can't tell if that sounds like a good idea or an awful one
  - throwaway17_17 4y ago
    A compiled, number crunching dialect of Forth with a very good vocabulary (and the accompanying semantics) for n-dimensions matrix calculations sounds pretty neat. I’m surprised no one jumped in with a an APL reference, however there are some significant differences between an array processing language and a concatenative language with Fortran semantics.
    - lebuffon 4y ago
      Dr. Julian Noble (RIP) went down that road but realized it was overkill and switched to providing a "formula translator" for Forth. So it takes infix notation and translates it to RPN Forth code than is compiled interactively like normal Forth.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
oh_sigh 4y ago
I'd like to know more about "certain individuals trying to disrupt the language design process" alluded to in the readme.
- Alifatisk 4y ago
  Yeah that stuck with me as well.
- cfuendev 4y ago
  I think it was basically this dude building an LLVM compiler for Porth, which made Porth's creator (Tsoding Daily) uncomfortable because he felt like he was on a race to see who made his own unfinished language better. He says individuals with an "s", so I'm not sure who else he might be talking about, but I remember this LLVM person being the big shocking reason why he initially closed the source code. As far as I remember, the LLVM dude apologized in a public comment on the same video where Tsoding complained about this, claiming he was closing the LLVM repo and explaining it was just a toy project he made to understand LLVM better that got some attention.
  - canadianfella 4y ago
    [dead]
  - stjo 4y ago
    This is quite stupid in my opinion. I don't see how you "help" the language discouraging others from forking/improving the project.
    - gaetgu 4y ago
      While I agree, I can also see where the creator is coming from here. He is working on making his very unfinished language, and someone else comes and starts making an optimized LLVM version of it. The creator certainly doesn't want the language to always look like it does today—after all, he is still actively working on it, adding new features every week. But he is afraid that the LLVM version will be so much better that people will use that instead of his work-in-progress compiler, and so they will be stuck with an old version of his language. I think he should have handled it better. Maybe explaining why he didn't want a fork (he may have done this, I haven't watched his porth series specifically), and maybe asking the guy to put out something in his README.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ZiiS 4y ago
I am missing the python? This seems self hosting,
- throwaway17_17 4y ago
  In Tsoding’s streams Porth started out hosted via Python before he eventually wrote Porth in Porth.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jammycrisp 4y ago
There's also https://github.com/llllllllll/phorth https://github.com/llllllllll/phorth, an implementation of forth that compiles to cpython bytecode
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rabf 4y ago
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpM-Dvs8t0VbMZA7wW9aR3EtBqe2kinu4 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpM-Dvs8t0VbMZA7wW9aR3EtB... Playlist of this being created.
guessbest 4y ago
I like this HN pivot from rust to forth.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

101 points by Alifatisk 4y ago

Alifatisk 4y ago

He moved the development from Github to Gitlab

unixhero 4y ago
Good move!
- gymbeaux 4y ago
  Why’s that? Because Github is scraping repos for Copilot?
  - unixhero 4y ago
    No, because of Better features
    - gymbeaux 4y ago
      As far as I know, Github generally keeps up with Gitlab. For a while, I was on Gitlab because private repos were free, but since Microsoft purchased Github, Github has that too. Gitlab's own page about the differences between the two is somewhat biased[1]. Most of the features where "Gitlab wins", are niche and nice-to-haves at best. Mostly "scanning" features, and I'm sure they aren't free. Meanwhile, even Gitlab seems to recognize Gitlab is superior in at least one way (CodeSpaces). [1] https://about.gitlab.com/devops-tools/github-vs-gitlab/ https://about.gitlab.com/devops-tools/github-vs-gitlab/

omgmajk 4y ago

The youtube series is quite good for this, especially the first few episodes where he uses NASM to compile from Python instead of compiling Porth with Porth.

DonHopkins 4y ago

Not to be confused with Forthon.

timbit42 4y ago
So a Python interpreter implemented in Forth? That reminds me of some code I came across one time which was a BASIC implemented in Forth. It was less than 100 lines of code, which I thought was impressive.
- lebuffon 4y ago
  I believe the first version of that interpreter was written by Charles Moore himself. "Lines" in Forth are rather fluid but I have a version here that is 154 lines when formatted as a text file rather than 1K disk blocks.
6177c40f 4y ago
I read that initially as "Forthtran" and I can't tell if that sounds like a good idea or an awful one
- throwaway17_17 4y ago
  A compiled, number crunching dialect of Forth with a very good vocabulary (and the accompanying semantics) for n-dimensions matrix calculations sounds pretty neat. I’m surprised no one jumped in with a an APL reference, however there are some significant differences between an array processing language and a concatenative language with Fortran semantics.
  - lebuffon 4y ago
    Dr. Julian Noble (RIP) went down that road but realized it was overkill and switched to providing a "formula translator" for Forth. So it takes infix notation and translates it to RPN Forth code than is compiled interactively like normal Forth.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

oh_sigh 4y ago

I'd like to know more about "certain individuals trying to disrupt the language design process" alluded to in the readme.

Alifatisk 4y ago
Yeah that stuck with me as well.
cfuendev 4y ago
I think it was basically this dude building an LLVM compiler for Porth, which made Porth's creator (Tsoding Daily) uncomfortable because he felt like he was on a race to see who made his own unfinished language better. He says individuals with an "s", so I'm not sure who else he might be talking about, but I remember this LLVM person being the big shocking reason why he initially closed the source code. As far as I remember, the LLVM dude apologized in a public comment on the same video where Tsoding complained about this, claiming he was closing the LLVM repo and explaining it was just a toy project he made to understand LLVM better that got some attention.
- canadianfella 4y ago
  [dead]
- stjo 4y ago
  This is quite stupid in my opinion. I don't see how you "help" the language discouraging others from forking/improving the project.
  - gaetgu 4y ago
    While I agree, I can also see where the creator is coming from here. He is working on making his very unfinished language, and someone else comes and starts making an optimized LLVM version of it. The creator certainly doesn't want the language to always look like it does today—after all, he is still actively working on it, adding new features every week. But he is afraid that the LLVM version will be so much better that people will use that instead of his work-in-progress compiler, and so they will be stuck with an old version of his language. I think he should have handled it better. Maybe explaining why he didn't want a fork (he may have done this, I haven't watched his porth series specifically), and maybe asking the guy to put out something in his README.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ZiiS 4y ago

I am missing the python? This seems self hosting,

throwaway17_17 4y ago
In Tsoding’s streams Porth started out hosted via Python before he eventually wrote Porth in Porth.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jammycrisp 4y ago

There's also https://github.com/llllllllll/phorth https://github.com/llllllllll/phorth, an implementation of forth that compiles to cpython bytecode

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rabf 4y ago

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpM-Dvs8t0VbMZA7wW9aR3EtBqe2kinu4 https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpM-Dvs8t0VbMZA7wW9aR3EtB... Playlist of this being created.

guessbest 4y ago

I like this HN pivot from rust to forth.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]