On Sun, 2020-03-29 at 10:21 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > On Mar 28, 2020, at 2:55 PM, dwight via cctalk < > > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > There are a few reasons most don't like Forth: > > > > 1. no type checking ( suppose to save dumb programmers ) > > 2. Often, no floating point. ( Math has to be well thought out > > but when done right in integer math it has few bugs ). > > 3. Few libraries ( One can often make code to attach to things > > like C libraries but it is a pain in the A. Often if you know what > > needs to be done it is easier and better to write your own low > > level code. Things like USB are tough to get at the low level > > stuff, though ) > > 4. To many cryptic symbols ( : , . ! @ ; ) > > 5. To much stack noise ( dup swap rot over ) > > > > I still use Forth for all my hobby work. It is the easiest language > > to get something working of any of the languages I've worked with. > > ... > > Learning to be effective with Forth has a relatively steep learning > > curve. You have to understand the compiler and how it deals with > > your source code. You need to get used to proper comments to handle > > stack usage. You need to learn how to write short easily test words > > ( routines ). It is clearly not just a backwards LISP. It is not > > Python either. > > Dwight > > No, it certainly isn't Python, which is my other major fast-coding > language. > > FORTH started as a small fast real-time control language; its > inventor worked in an observatory and needed a way to control > telescopes. It's still used for that today. I recently went looking > for FORTH processors in FPGA, there are several. One that looked > very good was designed for robotics and machine vision work. The > designer posted both the FPGA design and the software, which includes > a TCP/IP (or UDP/IP ?) stack. He reports that the code is both much > smaller and faster than compiled C code running on conventional FPGA > embedded processors. > Yes, that would be J1. I've used it and even wrote a simulator for it (in FORTH 'natch) so that I could debug my code. It's a useful FPGA implementation.
TTFN - Guy
