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Try Forth

forthfreak.net

61 pointsgrifaton17 comments

Ah brings back the days! Once upon a time I did most of my programming in a Forth like language we called "Fifth".

Eclipse today is almost bringing Java development to the point that it is sort of as productive as the Environment we built for Forth that ran on 20 Mhz PCs with 16 Megs of memory.

Almost.

What did we have?

Lazy compilation (functions compiled as needed rather than making us wait for a full compile) which doesn't exist today for Java, unless you count JIT (which honestly is a different concept).

Hot code replacement (that worked every time rather than the "sometimes works" with Eclipse).

Immediate functions for implementing all sorts of functionality algorithmically at compile time instead of writing code generators and initialization functions.

Instant initialization (a side effect of Immediate functions). Our Postscript Interpreter booted in milliseconds on a 16 Mhz 68000 as compared to the 1 or 2 minutes for the Apple Lazerwriter.

Hot key navigation -- Eclipse is about on par.

Online help -- Eclipse has a bit nicer interface, but ours was pretty near "Wiki Easy" to develop and extend and available on a key stroke.

Graphical interfaces and windows, Syntax completion, Syntax highlighting... All ideas that came later. All we had was character graphics, but we did great stuff with that.

Anyway, Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I miss programming right against the metal, but I also don't miss it too!

I would love to have more information about this... Who made it? Do you still have the sources / docs?

I cannot find any references on the Internet to any programming language called "Fifth", aside from [1].

  The FIFTH programming language is one of John U. Sussman's joke languages published in InfoWorld and, later, to several USENET groups. It is a parody of Forth, a stack-based programming language.

  The original description by Sussman is: FIFTH ... FIFTH is a precision mathematical language in which the data types refer to quantity. The data types range from CC, OUNCE, SHOT, and JIGGER to FIFTH (hence the name of the language), LITER, MAGNUM, and BLOTTO. Commands refer to in- gredients such as CHABLIS, CHARDONNAY, CABERNET, GIN, VERMOUTH, VODKA, SCOTCH and WHATEVERSAROUND.

  The many versions of the FIFTH language reflect the sophisti- cation and financial status of its users. Commands in the ELITE dialect include VSOP and LAFITE, while commands in the GUTTER di- alect include HOOTCH and RIPPLE. The latter is a favorite of frustrated FORTH programmers who end up using the language

However...

  In the 1980s, Kriya Systems developed and sold an object oriented Forth-like programming language which was initially announced as FIFTH. FIFTH never appeared on the market, but Kriya Systems did launch an object oriented Forth variant, named NEON. FIFTH is also the name of a Forth-based programming environment, described by Cliff Click and Paul Snow at the 1986 Rochester Forth Conference.

I found references to the Rochester Forth Conference variant @[2] as well as Neon@[3]. Wonder which one is it...

[1]http://www.articleworld.org/index.php/FIFTH_programming_lang...

[2]http://www.forth.org/bournemouth/jfar/vol4/no2/article14.pdf

[3]http://drdobbs.com/184409686 (under the "Cheapo Neon" header)

When I worked in the retail point of sale industry back in the eighties, one of the Japanese cash register/electronic scales vendors (might have been Omron, it's a long time ago) used a language they called "Fifth" which seemed to give them a software development productivity advantage. Probably a case of overlapping names for different products, since "Fifth" is such an obvious name for a "Forth" variant.

I have similar feelings about Common Lisp development versus typical modern Java/C++ IDEs. I've often wondered what kept—is still keeping?—such functionality sequestered from the mainstream for so long, and the best I've come up with is "unfamiliar syntax scares people," which really isn't all that convincing.

The nice thing is, unlike with Forth (though perhaps Factor or similar offers this?), you can use modern iterations of these CL environments to do general-purpose development today, enjoying all the benefits of a richer toolset.

If someone is looking for a great forth tutorial/book, one of the best is "Thinking Forth" by Brodie. Now available as an open project: http://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/

This book was a constant companion of mine when I was a teenager. Damn, I loved forth.

Cool stuff. Great for learning Forth. I'm thinking of programming a custom forth for a particular microcontroller I got my hands on.

If you want an even more portable Forth environment, check out Amforth (http://amforth.sourceforge.net/) or Fignition (http://sites.google.com/site/libby8dev/fignition).

Errr... what's the word for printing the top of the stack? Or some way of getting a result back out?

. It does drop the top of the stack, too, though.

So, to compute and print 1001, do:

7 11 13 * * .

Also useful: .s non-destructively prints the stack (as does .S ; this forth does appear to be case-insensitive)

Full stop/period, e.g.:

  2 2 + .

For a full list of words enter 'words'

simply use the dot.

try: 2 3 + .

Period character (with whitespace on either side).

eg:

10 . <return>

Thanks! I thought I'd tried . but since it clearly works I must have done something wrong the first time. I haven't done any serious Forth programming since about 1988, I must be a bit rusty.

Once you've tried one version of Forth, you've tried one version of Forth. :)

Seriously, last time I used Forth was using a New Micros board that ran IsoMax, a great language for state machines.

Always wanted to try this out:

http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=53&id=9

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