After reading quite a bit about Forth, my interest is definitely
piqued! I have read that it is possible to hold the entire language
in your head at once! I've read that a Forth system comes with a
compiler, the editor, the runtime library, and the very operating
system itself! I've also read that all of this only takes up a few k
of memory!

- How much of this is true, and in what way and/or to what extent?
- Is it possible to compile native code, and how would one go about
it?
- Is the source code included (to study)?
- Which package is worth learning from the ground up? (and where can I
get it?)

ilikemachines@cox.net writes:

Not a "few". It depends a lot on what you're including into the system.

It is possible. The second part depends on the system.

It depends on the system, Forth isn't single-implementation language.

Prepare to get many different controversial responses.

To make things more interesting, I propose FIG Forth, eForth, and Pygmy.

Thanks! I found source for eForth written in forth. Once I get forth
learned better, I'd like to comprehend the virtual machine as well as
I can. Is this a good tactic to becoming a good Forth programmer?

ilikemachines@cox.net writes:

No. Write applications, not virtual machines.
Solve real problems, not virtual ones.

Hmm... That's certainly true in other languages.

ilikemachines@cox.net wrote:

The best way to learn Forth is to use it to write programs. The best
way to learn to write better programs is to look at your programs and
figure out how to make them better (smaller, faster, more readable,
whatever your goal is).

In my advanced Forth courses we have a "course project" which is a
simple application that everyone has 3 days to write and test (between
lectures and specific problem set assignments). There's a prize for the
smallest compiled working program and for the most readable program
(class members get to vote). Students learn the "economics" of various
programming choices (what makes programs smaller, faster, more readable,
etc.) along with what it takes to write readable code (readable by their
classmates).

I'm not sure that learning how the virtual machine works helps, although
it's certainly interesting. Does knowing how an automobile engine works
make you a better driver?

On Jul 28, 3:50 pm, Aleksej Saushev wrote:

"roger.levy@gmail.com" gmail.com> writes:

On Jul 29, 12:07 am, Aleksej Saushev wrote:

Op Mon, 28 Jul 2008 22:30:00 -0700 (PDT) schreef roger.levy@gmail.com:

I can't think of any Forth that doesn't have >R and R>. Every Forth has at
least two stacks ;-)

But the word VECTOR> is not portable. I.e. some implementations might have
a different width for the data and return stacks. A portable use of >R and

I have an implementation (not my 16 bit CHForth) that inlines the code and
will not compile DEFINE-VECTOR correctly.

Use insted DEFER as is proposed in http://www.forth200x.org/deferred.html