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Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's

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"Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> wrote:

> "Fritz Wuehler" <fritz@spamexpire-201203.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> wrote
> in message
> news:3bfc38529cef7fe7b6888a5c84eb9446@msgid.frell.theremailer.net...
> > "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> wrote:
> ...
> 
> > > It's a lot easier to write a standalone Forth, with all its own drivers
> > > and everything, than to write a Forth that runs under any OS we've ever
> > > seen.
> >
> > That doesn't seem like it would be the case on z/Arch and in my case it
> > wouldn't matter because I'm thinking about Forth specifically as a special
> > purpose tool for writing system code for an OS (to extend the OS, not
> > replace it) [...]
> 
> I'm not discouraging you from using Forth, but do you really need Forth for
> that?

What would you suggest instead?

> I.e., Forth seems like overkill.

I would never think of Forth as overkill! As far as I can see, Forth is the
best choice for this because using any other existing compiler would require
eliminating the runtime and replacing it with your own, and then you would
still have to change the language itself to support the extra stuff you need
for writing systems software. Forth makes those extensions and changes much
easier because new words don't change the core language. Changing more
traditional languages requires syntax and semantic changes that are
extensive.

> By that, I mean, perhaps a much simpler set of tools could do the job?  A
> few simple programs in assembly, or C, or PL/I, etc should do the job ...

I already write systems software in assembler. C is mostly unusable and PL/I
is completely unusable. We discussed that at some length earlier. If you
want to write systems software on z you can use assembler. You can also use
their latest C  compiler and drop through about 90% of the time to
assembler, but even with that you can't write 100% of what you might
need. Aside from PL/X which is IBM-only there isn't any other tool that lets
you write systems software. PL/I is a good general purpose language but it
won't support writing systems software on z. If you know what you're doing
you might be able to write a ground-up Forth that doesn't get in the way of
systems programming extensions.

The point is, what other language could support systems software on z
besides assembler? Forth could and it would be an interesting project.

If you're not familiar with the System Z environment you're not going to be
able to understand what I'm talking about. No language aside from assembler
and PL/X has support for writing systems software. If you have to implement
a new language for that Forth seems like an excellent candidate.

> Think of them as a set of micro-tools, i.e., micro-compiler,
> micro-assembler, micro-linker, etc.  This gets to the heart of why you are
> looking into Forth.  Simplicity? 0-operand? Grouping? Parsing?
> Interpreter?

Forth is the easiest language to extend to something meaningful on z of
anything I can think of. It's actually a better choice than C. You build it
up from words as you know. You can do things incrementally and if you don't
write it in Forth you can avoid bootstrapping entirely. The main thing is
you don't have to change the syntax or flavor of the language to support
systems programming unlike what you would have to do with other languages.

> You mentioned "extensibility, modularity, and compactness" in regards to
> Forth in the portion I snipped.  : (colon) and ; (semicol) group operations
> together, much like a procedure in other languages.  That functionality has
> also been combined with BrainFuck.  Have you read about ToadSkin?
> http://esolangs.org/wiki/Toadskin

There's nothing extensible, modular or compact about Brainfuck! It's useless
as a programming language. It's a good joke and alot of fun but has no value
for actual use. Try writing a few sample programs if you don't believe me.

> Ok, that's probably still too primitive being Brainfuck derived.  Brainfuck
> also needs support for strings and integers.

It's pretty worthless except as proof of concept. You're not going to be
able to write systems software on z with it and probably not anywhere else
either. Maybe you could on DOS but I assure you, nobody would want to.

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A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Forth interpreter. "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-03-22 19:16 -0400
  Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Forth interpreter. jacko <jackokring@gmail.com> - 2012-03-23 00:38 -0700
    Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Forth interpreter. jacko <jackokring@gmail.com> - 2012-03-23 00:56 -0700
  Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's For  interpreter. Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-03-23 12:53 +0100
    Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's For  interpreter. "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-03-23 20:44 -0400
      Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's For  interpreter. Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-03-25 10:30 +0200
        Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's For  interpreter. "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-03-25 06:05 -0400
          Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-03-27 03:03 +0200
            Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2012-03-26 15:39 -1000
              Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201203.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-03-28 11:18 +0200
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-03-30 07:04 -0400
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201203.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-03-30 19:24 +0200
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-03-30 13:00 -0700
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-04-04 16:09 +0200
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-03-30 18:06 -0400
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201204.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-04-02 16:39 +0200
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2012-04-02 15:37 -0700
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's BruceMcF <agila61@netscape.net> - 2012-04-02 16:59 -0700
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's kenney@cix.compulink.co.uk - 2012-04-03 17:15 -0500
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-04-04 05:23 -0400
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Nomen Nescio <nobody@dizum.com> - 2012-04-04 15:58 +0200
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-04-05 09:57 -0400
                Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201204.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-04-05 11:21 +0200
          Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Fritz Wuehler <fritz@spamexpire-201203.rodent.frell.theremailer.net> - 2012-03-27 13:08 +0200
      Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's For  interpreter. anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2012-03-26 08:58 +0000
  Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Forth interpreter. Fanzo <cristianof6@gmail.com> - 2012-03-25 15:32 +0200
  Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Forth interpreter. "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@noavailemail.cmm> - 2012-03-30 18:05 -0400
    Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Forth interpreter. "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-04-02 05:08 -0400
      Re: A short history of the stages of development and status of RP's Forth interpreter. "Rod Pemberton" <do_not_have@notemailnot.cmm> - 2012-04-10 11:07 -0400

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