

A Little Bit of Forth [video] - owainlewis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6FflPMHZP4

======
owainlewis
I found forth a pretty interesting language. Started collecting some useful
links if anyone else wants to get started.
[https://github.com/owainlewis/awesome-
forth](https://github.com/owainlewis/awesome-forth)

~~~
agumonkey
You should head to
[http://www.reddit.com/r/forth](http://www.reddit.com/r/forth), you'll be
happy.

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rpcope1
I still write some Forth occasionally, it's really awesome for embedded
systems, as it runs on little MCUs like AVR. It's so cool to update the
program without reflashing the MCU, and have potentially have an interactive
interpreter on such low resource processors.

I think becoming proficient with Forth has also made me a better programmer in
other languages; for example stack based iterative replacements for recursion
come easier, as well as other stack based algorithms. It also makes understand
the CPython VM a lot easier.

~~~
schsafe
Some people compare FORTH with game GO or philosophy ZEN. Very simple rules.
And you build an own universe. And all of this fits into a very small size. As
you also mentioned.

------
schsafe
If you want to play with an online FORTH interpreter:

[http://forthfreak.net/jsforth80x25.html](http://forthfreak.net/jsforth80x25.html)

    
    
      ok

: fibo 1 dup 45 0 do . dup rot rot + dup loop ;

    
    
      ok
    

fibo

1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765 10946 17711
2 8657 46368 75025 121393 196418 317811 514229 832040 1346269 2178309 3524578
5702 887 9227465 14930352 24157817 39088169 63245986 102334155 165580141
267914296 43 3494437 701408733 1134903170 ok..

The Fibonacci numbers :-)

------
lukego
Learning Forth from the OLPC XO boot prompt is one of the most fun things I
have done with a computer. Great tutorial here:
[http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Forth_Lessons](http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Forth_Lessons)

~~~
schsafe
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware)

------
coroxout
Nice. Been meaning to dabble more with Forth since stumbling across the Forth
Haiku Salon: [http://forthsalon.appspot.com/](http://forthsalon.appspot.com/)

~~~
andybak
That's incredible. You should make a front page post of it.

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schsafe
I created a FORTH like language some years ago. Also fun.

/home/user/st> more fibonacci

1#[." "#@@+#a-;]10,

/home/user/st> st fibonacci 45

1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987 1597 2584 4181 6765 10946 17711
28657 46368 75025 121393 196418 317811 514229 832040 1346269 2178309 3524578
5702887 9227465 14930352 24157817 39088169 63245986 102334155 165580141
267914296 433494437 701408733 1134903170

/home/user/st>

------
TheLoneWolfling
I have a soft spot for stack-based languages.

Anyone played around with Factor?

~~~
MonkeyIsNull
Yes, it's truly a joy to program in. It's also covered pretty well in Seven
more languages in Seven weeks.

------
mastax
I've been writing a Forth Interpreter over the past weeks as a way to learn
Rust. It's very motivating how quickly a working prototype can be whipped up;
once the data structures are worked out it's basically done. There's a quiet
beauty and elegance to Forth code that I can't really find anywhere else. At
the same time, it's often frustratingly crufty.

------
agumonkey
And for stack lovers :

\-
[http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/Eric%20LaForest:%20Next%20G...](http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/media/Eric%20LaForest:%20Next%20Generation%20Stack%20Computing)

\- [http://fpgacpu.ca/stack/index.html](http://fpgacpu.ca/stack/index.html)

------
schsafe
FORTH is a very old and unique language. Different from all the others. You
can find it even in the space-ships.

[http://www.forth.org](http://www.forth.org)

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timonoko
It would be so sweet if the "(" and ")" were defined as push/pop from a
secondary stack. So "(+ 1 2)" would always be equal to "1 2 +".

: ABS (IF (< DUP 0)) (THEN (- 0 SWAP)) ;

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GFK_of_xmaspast
It's kind of a shame that you don't hear more about forth.

