> > Why not implement Factor on top of an existing Forth?
>
> It's entirely possible, sure. Heck, Factor used to be written atop the
> JVM.
> The reason to use C++ is really more social than technical. C++ is much
> more
> ubiquitous than Forth, so people won't need to install a dependency they
> don't
> already have. And despite Factor being stack-based, the representation
> you're
> working with by the time it gets to the *compiler* is fairly far removed
> from
> what Factor code actually looks like to the programmer. So, using another
> stack-based language to write the compiler doesn't really confer as many
> benefits as you'd think. In fact, a relatively small part of Factor is
> written
> in C++ anyway. The optimizing compiler is written in Factor itself (which
> is
> interesting for its own reasons). See
> http://concatenative.org/wiki/view/Factor/FAQ/Implementation for more.
>
''So Making Factor self-hosted would actually mean rewriting the virtual
machine in a new, low-level DSL, which was based around a subset of Factor
but added direct memory access and eliminated all runtime type information.
A VM-level DSL would not be interactively debuggable or replaceable, and
none of Factor's high-level tools or abstractions would be present.''
New to stack languages, so can't speak from experience.
Still, this sounds a lot like Forth ...
''A new, low-level DSL, which was based around a subset of Factor but added
direct memory access and eliminated all runtime type information.''
The fact that RetroForth compiles to the Ngaro vm is also a neat idea.
Problem with RetroForth, compared to Factor, is a lack of features.
Makes sense that the language of the compiler is arbitrary.
Guess what I had in mind was adding words and vocabularies to RetroForth
until it has all the features of Factor.
Not sure how possible that is.
Nice to dream about this stuff, though.
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