Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.lang.forth > #50879

Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE

Show all headers | View raw

mhx@iae.nl writes:
>I use Visual studio Community a lot and it is essential
>for C, but if I compare it to how I do things in Forth
>(with Git, a good editor, and OS facilities as Forth
>words) I can name only two things:
>
>1. The ability to point to a word in the source and see
>its definition (fields!) to any depth. In essence, all
>macro's and layers are stripped away to see the 
>fundamental @ and !'s we all love.

Gforth has etags.fs for generating TAGS files (for TAGS-compatible
editors such as emacs) and tags.fs for generating tags files (for
tags-compatible editors such as vi), and with the TAGS or tags file
you can point at any word and get at the definition, and can get back.

SwiftForth and current development Gforth have LOCATE for showing the
definition of a word; with that you have to type the name of the word
you want to follow.  SwiftForth and current development Gforth have
EDIT, and VFX has LOCATE to go to the position of the word in the
editor (and in Gforth, you can then continue with TAGS/tags support).

These functions also work on macros, and then you see the source of
the macro.

For seeing a word with macros expanded, I like SEE or SIMPLE-SEE in
Gforth (and if I also want to see the native code, I use SEE-CODE).

>2. A debugger: single step through code, see all
>registers and variables etc. change 'live'.

Gforth has a single-step "debugger", but it is used very little: It
was broken in 0.6, we did not notice that (because we don't use it),
and few people reported that.  It can be useful to demonstrate
execution to beginners, but my experience is that single-stepping
is a waste of time for debugging.

Now one thing that is useful for debugging and that could use better
Forth support is backwards execution, in particular with watchpoints.

In general, I think that IDEs are more a matter of familiarity than of
necessity.  If you are familiar with one, you will miss it, and are
not keen to learn alternatives, even if the people who use the
alternatives claim that they are more effective (that sure is sour
grapes, right?).

It seems, though, that those people who miss IDEs and ask for them in
Forth do not scratch this itch; I don't know whether that is because
they eventually learn and love the alternatives we use in Forth, or
because the rather look for a different language that works with an
IDE (or their favourite IDE).

- anton
-- 
M. Anton Ertl  http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
     New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html
   EuroForth 2016: http://www.euroforth.org/ef16/

Back to comp.lang.forth | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-08 11:46 +0100
  Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Andreas Wagner <andreas.wagner@lowfatcomputing.org> - 2016-09-08 07:29 -0700
  Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE lawrencedo99@gmail.com - 2016-09-09 23:48 -0700
    Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-10 11:40 +0100
      Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE foxaudioresearch@gmail.com - 2016-09-10 07:48 -0700
        Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE mhx@iae.nl - 2016-09-10 09:59 -0700
          Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE foxaudioresearch@gmail.com - 2016-09-10 12:27 -0700
            Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-11 15:01 +0100
              Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2016-09-11 08:02 -0700
              Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE lawrencedo99@gmail.com - 2016-09-11 19:07 -0700
          Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-10 22:13 +0200
          Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-11 14:52 +0100
          Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-12 09:10 +0000
            Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-12 13:49 +0200
        Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE stephen@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2016-09-12 13:55 +0000
          Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-13 11:18 +0100
            Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Ron Aaron <rambamist@gmail.com> - 2016-09-13 13:26 +0300
            Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Coos Haak <htrofhc@gmail.com> - 2016-09-13 13:13 +0200
              Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Chris Curl <ccurl609@gmail.com> - 2016-09-13 05:46 -0700
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-14 14:03 +0100
              Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-13 10:30 -0700
            Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-13 16:45 +0000
              Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-14 14:03 +0100
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-14 15:16 +0000
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-15 13:38 +0100
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-15 21:39 +0200
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-16 11:54 +0100
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-16 09:49 -0500
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE lawrencedo99@gmail.com - 2016-09-16 15:34 -0700
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-15 12:43 -0700
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-16 12:18 +0100
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2016-09-16 02:37 -0700
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-16 14:45 +0100
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-14 10:30 -0700
                Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE lawrencedo99@gmail.com - 2016-09-14 15:42 -0700
      Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE lawrencedo99@gmail.com - 2016-09-10 19:22 -0700
  Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE missycurl@gmail.com - 2016-09-11 06:02 -0700
    Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE missycurl@gmail.com - 2016-09-11 06:08 -0700
      Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-11 14:56 +0100
        Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE missycurl@gmail.com - 2016-09-11 12:59 -0700
  Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2016-09-13 23:10 +0100
    Re: native compiling embedable Forth with decent IDE jim <anon@example.com> - 2016-09-14 14:03 +0100

csiph-web