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Is Forth still being used in industry other than for legacy systems? (genuine question)

by sysk 11y ago

AdieuToLogic 11y ago
Open Firmware and the FreeBSD loader use it presently.
- sedatk 11y ago
  Yes, IIRC Intel's Itanium (IA64) architecture used firmware and drivers in Forth (instead of machine code) so you could use the hardware on any CPU architecture.
  - pgeorgi 11y ago
    No, Itanium specifically eschewed OpenFirmware (IEEE1275-1994, which is ANS Forth based) in favor of inventing EFI, which would develop into UEFI later. Among the reasons: no interest in bytecode (UEFI now has EBC), no ACPI support (IEEE1275 predates ACPI by a decade, Intel didn't bother), protecting Intel's "Independent" BIOS Vendors from having to compete in an existing market (there were several OpenFirmware vendors). Most OF implementations are now open source, we collected them at www.openfirmware.info.
theophrastus 11y ago
postscript is a dialect of forth http://hyperpolyglot.org/stack http://hyperpolyglot.org/stack
- teh_klev 11y ago
  I wouldn't go as far as saying Postscript is a dialect of Forth, influenced by or perhaps "Forth-like" (i.e. stack-based), but certainly not a dialect.
Animats 11y ago
Not much. Forth is from an era when it was hard to program small microcontrollers and the tools for doing so were expensive. Today, everybody cross-compiles to microcontrollers. I've done robotics programming in Forth. I do not expect to use it again.
- minikomi 11y ago
  What has the industry moved onto now?
  - pjc50 11y ago
    Embedded stuff is nearly always C. Arduino have made the "Wiring" language popular for rapid prototyping (based on processing and hence javascript). But these days, embedded full Linux systems are just too cheap to not be the default option when you want to develop on the device itself.
    - GuiA 11y ago
      Processing is based on Java, not JavaScript.
    - technomancy 11y ago
      My understanding is that the link between Arduino and Processing is solely in the IDE. I don't think the two share any common ground beyond just the fact that Java (which Processing is a very thin layer on top of) is similar to C (which Arduino is a very thin layer on top of.)
      - Animats 11y ago
        Arduino's language is just GCC C++ with some extra Arduino-specific libraries and some standard libraries missing. I think there's now Rust for the Arduino Due, which is ARM-based.
    - mhd 11y ago
      For the smaller stuff (automation) PLCs are also quite popular, especially for the EE guys.
rebootthesystem 11y ago
I'll echo one of the other comments. I've also done robotics with Forth and used it extensively for about ten years. I do enjoy the language. That said, I don't see much justification for it today for general usage. As early as 15 years ago a number of our embedded products using 8 bit processors were programmed in assembler and/or Forth. This quickly became challenging in terms of product maintenance (assembler) and finding qualified experienced developers (assembler and Forth). I found myself in the difficult position, as CEO, of not being able to remove these responsibilities from my desk. And so we ported all of our code from assembler/Forth to C. In that process we improved nearly every technical and business metric. The port took months but it was well worth it. I still think every programmer needs to start with assembler wrangling processor architecture internals "by hand", move on to Forth (or a TIL), then Lisp and C. I am sometimes in horror to come across programmers for whom every solution requires bloated, inefficient object oriented code.
rpcope1 11y ago
Yes, for starters, some hardware companies still use Forth for low level testing of devices.
JoachimS 11y ago
Yes in OS boot loaders. FreeBSD uses it, and I think Apple uses it for OSX. Possibly iOS.
- JoachimS 11y ago
  Sorry, I'm wrong regarding OSX and iOS. OpenFirmware is used at numerous places, but Apple is not one of them.
  - technomancy 11y ago
    Apple used it when they were still PowerPC-based. They sadly dropped it with the move to Intel.
    - david-given 11y ago
      You used to be able to boot up with Command+O+F and get a Forth prompt. (Although I have a hazy recollection that on some models they didn't include a screen terminal, so you couldn't interact with it...)
  - rollthehard6 11y ago
    Apple used to use it in the PowerPC days as did Sun - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware http://www.brendangregg.com/Sun/obp.html http://www.brendangregg.com/Sun/obp.html
kryptiskt 11y ago
Rosetta (the comet probe) has a bunch of RTX processors running Forth.

Is Forth still being used in industry other than for legacy systems? (genuine question)

by sysk 11y ago

Is Forth still being used in industry other than for legacy systems? (genuine question)

AdieuToLogic 11y ago

Open Firmware and the FreeBSD loader use it presently.

sedatk 11y ago
Yes, IIRC Intel's Itanium (IA64) architecture used firmware and drivers in Forth (instead of machine code) so you could use the hardware on any CPU architecture.
- pgeorgi 11y ago
  No, Itanium specifically eschewed OpenFirmware (IEEE1275-1994, which is ANS Forth based) in favor of inventing EFI, which would develop into UEFI later. Among the reasons: no interest in bytecode (UEFI now has EBC), no ACPI support (IEEE1275 predates ACPI by a decade, Intel didn't bother), protecting Intel's "Independent" BIOS Vendors from having to compete in an existing market (there were several OpenFirmware vendors). Most OF implementations are now open source, we collected them at www.openfirmware.info.

theophrastus 11y ago

postscript is a dialect of forth http://hyperpolyglot.org/stack http://hyperpolyglot.org/stack

teh_klev 11y ago
I wouldn't go as far as saying Postscript is a dialect of Forth, influenced by or perhaps "Forth-like" (i.e. stack-based), but certainly not a dialect.

Animats 11y ago

Not much. Forth is from an era when it was hard to program small microcontrollers and the tools for doing so were expensive. Today, everybody cross-compiles to microcontrollers. I've done robotics programming in Forth. I do not expect to use it again.

minikomi 11y ago
What has the industry moved onto now?
- pjc50 11y ago
  Embedded stuff is nearly always C. Arduino have made the "Wiring" language popular for rapid prototyping (based on processing and hence javascript). But these days, embedded full Linux systems are just too cheap to not be the default option when you want to develop on the device itself.
  - GuiA 11y ago
    Processing is based on Java, not JavaScript.
  - technomancy 11y ago
    My understanding is that the link between Arduino and Processing is solely in the IDE. I don't think the two share any common ground beyond just the fact that Java (which Processing is a very thin layer on top of) is similar to C (which Arduino is a very thin layer on top of.)
    - Animats 11y ago
      Arduino's language is just GCC C++ with some extra Arduino-specific libraries and some standard libraries missing. I think there's now Rust for the Arduino Due, which is ARM-based.
  - mhd 11y ago
    For the smaller stuff (automation) PLCs are also quite popular, especially for the EE guys.

rebootthesystem 11y ago

I'll echo one of the other comments. I've also done robotics with Forth and used it extensively for about ten years. I do enjoy the language. That said, I don't see much justification for it today for general usage. As early as 15 years ago a number of our embedded products using 8 bit processors were programmed in assembler and/or Forth. This quickly became challenging in terms of product maintenance (assembler) and finding qualified experienced developers (assembler and Forth). I found myself in the difficult position, as CEO, of not being able to remove these responsibilities from my desk. And so we ported all of our code from assembler/Forth to C. In that process we improved nearly every technical and business metric. The port took months but it was well worth it. I still think every programmer needs to start with assembler wrangling processor architecture internals "by hand", move on to Forth (or a TIL), then Lisp and C. I am sometimes in horror to come across programmers for whom every solution requires bloated, inefficient object oriented code.

rpcope1 11y ago

Yes, for starters, some hardware companies still use Forth for low level testing of devices.

JoachimS 11y ago

Yes in OS boot loaders. FreeBSD uses it, and I think Apple uses it for OSX. Possibly iOS.

JoachimS 11y ago
Sorry, I'm wrong regarding OSX and iOS. OpenFirmware is used at numerous places, but Apple is not one of them.
- technomancy 11y ago
  Apple used it when they were still PowerPC-based. They sadly dropped it with the move to Intel.
  - david-given 11y ago
    You used to be able to boot up with Command+O+F and get a Forth prompt. (Although I have a hazy recollection that on some models they didn't include a screen terminal, so you couldn't interact with it...)
- rollthehard6 11y ago
  Apple used to use it in the PowerPC days as did Sun - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware http://www.brendangregg.com/Sun/obp.html http://www.brendangregg.com/Sun/obp.html

kryptiskt 11y ago

Rosetta (the comet probe) has a bunch of RTX processors running Forth.