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Groups > comp.lang.forth > #30300

Re: gforth too bloated ?

From Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de>
Newsgroups comp.lang.forth
Subject Re: gforth too bloated ?
Date 2014-05-11 22:12 +0200
Organization 1&1 Internet AG
Message-ID <lkolik$3l4$1@online.de> (permalink)
References (6 earlier) <dYSdncZm_NehYvDOnZ2dnUVZ_rydnZ2d@supernews.com> <2014May10.123904@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <7qadnesZfp6twfPOnZ2dnUVZ_qGdnZ2d@supernews.com> <2014May11.141024@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <7xha4w72jb.fsf@ruckus.brouhaha.com>

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Paul Rubin wrote:

> anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:
>> When we started Gforth, we were working on DecStations (little-endian
>> MIPS architecture) and HPPA machines.  HPPA is dead, and MIPS has
>> retreated...  Similarly, I guess that bare-metal colorForth does not
>> run on contemporary PC hardware.
> 
> I wonder if modern computers are harder to port to than the historical
> minicomputers that Forth evolved on, as there is more hardware
> complexity to deal with now.  In the old days one of Forth's selling
> points was that porting was pretty easy.

Sure, the hardware complexity is bigger.  But one important thing with Forth 
is that you solve only the problem at hand, and *not* the general problem.  
Example:  I've just written an Ethernet driver for the Tiva Connected 
Launchpad (together with Matthias Koch).  This is an embedded controller, 
but the Ethernet part is about as fancy and feature-rich as you would expect 
on a PC: TCP and IP checksum offload, scatter-gather DMA, etc..  Sounds 
complicated?  Isn't: You figure out how to get this thing working in *one* 
mode, because all those many modes aren't really necessary, and most of them 
won't work anyways (we quickly found undocumented bugs).  The Forth code 
uses ~10 of the ~100 registers, and after setup is completed only writes 
into the circular DMA descriptor array (and clears the interrupt flags in 
the IRQ).

One of the key success stories of Forth was OpenFirmware.  This always did 
run on the most complex workstations you could get: SPARCstations, POWER 
from IBM, not simple, stripped down stuff.  And yet, Forth did run on these 
things before the C people got the first "Hello World!" to run.

The typical situation with a Forth driver is that is way, way shorter than 
the documentation of the part you write it for.  This is not limited to e.g. 
the Ethernet driver as such; when I look at my ARP code, it is way shorter 
than the description of the ARP protocol on Wikipedia.  And ARP is a pretty 
simple protocol, simple enough to be described in a Wikipedia page ;-).

-- 
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://bernd-paysan.de/

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gforth too bloated ? Laurent Laborde <kerdezixe@gmail.com> - 2014-05-07 13:06 -0700
  Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-07 13:31 -0700
    Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-08 00:10 +0200
      Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-07 23:21 -0700
        Re: gforth too bloated ? Laurent Laborde <kerdezixe@gmail.com> - 2014-05-08 04:07 -0700
        Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-08 14:21 +0200
        Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-09 17:36 +0000
      Re: gforth too bloated ? dambere@web.de - 2014-05-09 15:01 -0700
        Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-10 00:05 +0200
        Re: gforth too bloated ? Melzzzzz <mel@zzzzz.invalid> - 2014-05-10 00:30 +0200
          Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-10 09:16 +0000
        Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-10 03:27 +0000
          Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-09 20:42 -0700
    Re: gforth too bloated ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2014-05-07 22:32 -0400
      Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-07 21:06 -0700
      Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-09 04:14 -0500
        Re: gforth too bloated ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2014-05-09 13:42 -0400
          Re: gforth too bloated ? Roger Levy <roger.levy@gmail.com> - 2014-05-09 11:48 -0700
            Re: gforth too bloated ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2014-05-09 15:18 -0400
          Re: gforth too bloated ? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-05-09 09:19 -1000
            Re: gforth too bloated ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2014-05-09 15:30 -0400
              Re: gforth too bloated ? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-05-09 13:21 -1000
          Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-10 05:16 -0500
            Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-10 05:28 -0500
              Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-10 10:39 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-10 12:04 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-11 12:10 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bill Long <blongo@gmail.com> - 2014-05-11 13:11 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Stan Barr <plan.b@dsl.pipex.com> - 2014-05-11 16:17 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bill Long <blongo@gmail.com> - 2014-05-11 17:10 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-11 08:34 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-11 22:12 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-12 00:38 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-12 00:35 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-05-11 23:29 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-11 23:37 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-05-11 23:40 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-12 00:39 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-12 10:20 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-05-12 05:10 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-13 09:17 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Howerd <howerdo@yahoo.co.uk> - 2014-05-13 04:28 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-12 03:19 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-13 16:40 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-05-13 07:56 -1000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-14 11:52 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-05-14 08:15 -1000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-16 16:09 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-16 09:42 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-16 17:21 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-16 10:45 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-13 12:56 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-14 12:03 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-14 09:17 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-14 16:50 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? AKK <akk@nospam.org> - 2014-05-14 20:26 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2014-05-14 20:38 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-14 20:02 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-15 14:22 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-15 17:39 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-15 15:03 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-15 15:06 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-15 15:32 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-16 02:13 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-15 20:18 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-16 04:08 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-16 04:28 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-16 09:23 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-17 07:52 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-17 09:19 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-17 11:51 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Samuel DEVULDER <samuel-dot-devulder-at-laposte-dot-net> - 2014-05-17 22:00 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-16 09:20 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-17 07:54 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-16 15:51 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2014-05-16 07:59 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-16 13:39 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2014-05-16 01:22 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-16 04:11 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2014-05-16 15:43 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2014-05-16 01:26 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-16 03:42 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-16 13:19 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-16 17:59 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-18 13:20 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-18 14:08 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2014-05-18 10:07 -1000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2014-05-21 21:37 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2014-05-22 10:06 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-22 10:04 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2014-05-22 15:39 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2014-05-22 13:36 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-20 11:59 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? m.a.m.hendrix@tue.nl - 2014-05-20 07:11 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-20 14:48 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-21 20:27 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2014-05-22 02:23 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-23 14:51 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-23 13:41 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-21 17:41 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-23 14:41 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-21 17:40 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-23 14:16 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-17 21:09 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-15 03:57 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-15 15:50 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-15 10:07 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-16 16:33 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-17 08:04 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-17 19:03 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-18 04:06 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-19 01:38 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-20 13:38 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-20 21:39 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-21 15:49 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-17 20:30 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-17 17:59 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-18 04:08 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-18 11:07 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-18 11:15 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-18 12:11 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-20 12:36 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? m.a.m.hendrix@tue.nl - 2014-05-20 07:17 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2014-05-20 16:26 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-20 09:27 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-20 15:48 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2014-05-20 18:35 +0100
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-21 03:45 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-21 14:28 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-21 11:56 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-21 20:54 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-22 14:06 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-22 17:02 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-23 13:05 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-23 19:19 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-22 14:30 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-22 12:09 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnothavet.cqm> - 2014-05-21 17:22 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-23 14:03 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2014-05-20 16:57 +0100
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-20 21:28 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2014-05-20 21:56 +0100
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-21 00:21 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-21 21:42 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-22 02:15 +0200
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-23 14:47 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-21 14:12 +0000
                Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-21 21:24 +0000
              Re: gforth too bloated ? albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-05-10 12:00 +0000
              Re: gforth too bloated ? rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2014-05-10 13:16 -0400
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2014-05-10 11:05 -0700
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2014-05-10 18:11 -0500
                Re: gforth too bloated ? Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2014-05-11 02:12 +0200
    Re: gforth too bloated ? anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-05-09 16:36 +0000
  Re: gforth too bloated ? jacko <jackokring@gmail.com> - 2014-05-07 20:01 -0700

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