Re: Postscript in 4tH

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From	Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth, comp.lang.postscript
Subject	Re: Postscript in 4tH
Date	Tue, 08 Sep 2026 02:09:43 -0300
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albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl writes:
> In article <871pb7l36f.fsf@nightsong.com>,
> Paul Rubin  <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>That's interesting as Postscript itself is a rather broken version of
>>Forth.  Do you mean with SVG calls you can do all the usual Postscript
>>stuff including text rendering?
>>
>>I just wrote some Postscript code recently and hit some ridiculous snags
>>due to dumb stuff in the language.  They were fixable but "traps for the
>>unwary" as it were.
>
> Maybe you weren't fully embracing the language. Don't expect it
> to be Forth.

I think of PostScript as being Lisp, more or less, but with quasi-Forth
syntax, and using arrays where Lisp uses linked lists.  Maybe Lua or
Python is a closer analogy: PostScript has separate array and dictionary
types, like Python.  But it’s extensible like Lisp or Forth.

Aside from the Adobe manual, Paul Bourke has a great tutorial and
reference at <https://paulbourke.net/dataformats/postscript/>.
Nathan Laredo has an amazing collection of PostScript code at
<https://postscriptcode.com/>, which is worth browsing through, and of
course Don Lancaster has lots of interesting stuff at
<https://www.tinaja.com/pssamp1.shtml> and nearby.

Mitch Bradley wrote a Forth *in* PostScript:
<https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/122630.127247>

Kragen

Thread

Postscript in 4tH Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2026-09-05 19:55 +0200
  Re: Postscript in 4tH Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-09-05 15:54 -0700
    Re: Postscript in 4tH albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2026-09-06 11:08 +0200
      Re: Postscript in 4tH Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-09-07 09:24 -0700
        Re: Postscript in 4tH albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2026-09-07 23:47 +0200
      Re: Postscript in 4tH Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-09-08 02:09 -0300
        Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-08 20:34 +0000
          Re: Postscript in 4tH Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-09-08 22:38 -0300
            Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-09 03:05 +0000
              XML in Pythong (was: Re: Postscript in 4tH) Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-09-09 15:00 +0800
              Re: Postscript in 4tH Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-09-10 01:06 -0300
                Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-10 07:38 +0000
                Re: Postscript in 4tH Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-09-10 07:39 -0700
                Re: Postscript in 4tH antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-09-15 16:04 +0000
                Re: Postscript in 4tH Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-09-15 09:24 -0700
            Re: Postscript in 4tH Johann 'Myrkraverk' Oskarsson <johann@myrkraverk.invalid> - 2026-09-09 15:15 +0800
              Re: Postscript in 4tH Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-09-10 01:11 -0300
            Re: Postscript in 4tH anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2026-09-09 07:35 +0000
              Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-09 08:10 +0000
                Re: Postscript in 4tH Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2026-09-10 17:58 +0200
              Re: Postscript in 4tH Kragen Javier Sitaker <kragen@canonical.org> - 2026-09-10 01:44 -0300
            Re: Postscript in 4tH Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-09-09 03:01 -0700
            Re: Postscript in 4tH albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2026-09-09 14:05 +0200
          Re: Postscript in 4tH anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2026-09-09 06:42 +0000
            Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-09 08:28 +0000
              Re: Postscript in 4tH anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2026-09-09 10:03 +0000
                Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-09 22:17 +0000
              Re: Postscript in 4tH albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2026-09-09 14:42 +0200
                Re: Postscript in 4tH antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2026-09-09 19:17 +0000
                Re: Postscript in 4tH albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2026-09-10 12:22 +0200
                Re: Postscript in 4tH Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-09-09 21:54 +0000
                Re: Postscript in 4tH Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2026-09-09 22:14 -0700
                Re: Postscript in 4tH albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2026-09-10 12:30 +0200
            Re: Postscript in 4tH albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2026-09-09 14:36 +0200
    Re: Postscript in 4tH Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2026-09-06 14:27 +0200
      Re: Postscript in 4tH Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> - 2026-09-08 17:18 +0200

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