Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth

From	Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth
Date	2015-03-21 19:47 -0700
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<871tkhbvex.fsf@jester.gateway.sonic.net> (permalink)
References	(4 earlier) <484d2063-5877-4820-9989-9aa8358516d0@googlegroups.com> <87a8z6aw9b.fsf@jester.gateway.sonic.net> <bf5f7457-17dc-46be-8262-c64d40181af3@googlegroups.com> <87619uav5r.fsf@jester.gateway.sonic.net> <9e9efbe7-b0c8-45a3-9d0a-3dea3651759e@googlegroups.com>

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franck.bensusan@gmail.com writes:
> Yes, I understand, but GC is almost mandatory when you want some features.

Sure, those are features not traditionally found in Forth ;-).  Forth
has something like malloc/free but really, Forth's typical application
domain is hardware control, and the programs tend to use static
allocation.  A program might create a few variables and arrays at the
start of execution and then do no more allocation or deallocation.

> For instance if you want closures, you have to save some environment
> and you don't know when to release it.

Sure, now tell me how that was done in Fortran: do you see where this is
going?  Forth programs sometimes do stuff like that using OOP libraries,
but Forth doesn't have first-class functions like Scheme.

> Doing this without GC is a pain... With GC, it is simple.

GC makes all kinds of things simple, but increases the program
footprint, complicates the interpreter implementation, and (this is
often a significant issue in hardware control) makes the program timing
non-deterministic.

> What do you mean by "type tags" ? 

I just mean objects in memory have some kind of field (either in the
pointer or in the heap structure) that says what type of object it is,
that the interpreter can inspect and dispatch on at runtime.  That's
just like Lisp and its descendants which is why I compared Oforth to
Lisp.  It contrasts with (say) Ada, which figures out the types at
compile time and generates code specialized to those types; and with
assembly language, where types and code selection are done manually by
the programmer, with no automatic tracking by the language either at
compile time or run time and your program can simply get it wrong
without any detection.  Forth is like assembly code in that regard.
Automatic type checking is against the ideals of Forth, since it would
interfere with your freedom or something like that.

Thread

8 queens problem in Oforth "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-19 07:53 +0000
  Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-19 08:58 -0700
    Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Doug Hoffman <glidedog@gmail.com> - 2015-03-20 08:16 -0400
      Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-03-21 10:11 +0000
        Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-03-21 03:45 -0700
          Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-21 14:14 -0700
            Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-03-21 14:28 -0700
              Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-21 14:38 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-03-21 15:15 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-21 18:23 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 03:03 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 14:04 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 16:34 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 21:49 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Raimond Dragomir <raimond.dragomir@gmail.com> - 2015-03-23 00:05 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-23 21:43 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-03-24 04:13 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-03-23 00:17 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-21 19:47 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth franck.bensusan@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 08:41 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 13:37 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-22 18:13 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 13:55 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-03-22 21:08 +0000
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 14:39 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 14:50 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-22 22:58 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 15:13 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-23 01:03 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 17:33 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-23 02:37 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 20:53 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 21:11 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-03-23 11:34 +0000
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-03-23 19:31 +0000
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-23 15:56 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-24 00:38 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-23 19:08 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-30 05:02 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-30 05:08 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-03-30 15:36 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-23 16:46 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-23 15:32 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-23 23:48 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-23 16:14 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 17:54 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-03-22 23:09 +0000
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-03-22 22:11 +0100
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-22 14:48 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 15:11 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-03-23 11:29 +0000
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-03-23 12:20 +0000
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2015-03-22 14:21 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2015-03-22 22:30 +0100
            Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-03-23 14:45 +0000
              Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-23 14:53 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-03-24 09:16 -1000
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-03-24 12:40 -0700
                Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-03-30 12:24 +0000
          Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2015-03-21 22:27 +0100
  Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-19 20:31 +0000
  Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-19 20:35 +0000
  Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-21 17:31 +0000
    Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-21 20:50 +0000
    Re: 8 queens problem in Oforth "WJ" <w_a_x_man@yahoo.com> - 2015-03-21 21:52 +0000

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