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Spooky cohost.org/bascule

@bascule

Oct 25, 2021

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@bitshiftmask

My first thought was “Erlang”, heh

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Yeah, at some point I'm going to realize I'm just re-inventing a lisp or forth or erlang or something. I'm trying to figure out a useful little scripting lang for embedded applications, that is relatively compact/simple. (at least smaller than a wasm or circuitpython or lua)

Replying to

and

This is a holy grail to me as well. Gut feeling is that the generality needed for an Erlang-like scripting lang is too great to fit it into that kind of code/data space. Forth as a scripting lang with some decent primitives goes a long way, but good luck selling that :-)

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and

I've made several attempts at a "safe Forth". Not satisfied, but not done trying either. Stack machines and refcount GC mix well. But cleaning up the original Forth idea to remove all unsafe constructs is not an easy task.

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and

"Safe Fourth" is a herecy. But you might be interested in oforth (oforth.com)

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and

In good Forth DIY tradition, probably not :-) TBH I'm a bit lost about what to do with this, but Forth as a protocol works for me, Forth as an instruction set also (e.g. tiny control CPU in FPGA). As a stand-alone language without meta system, Forth is stuck in the past.

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Example of Forth with a meta system: zwizwa.be/staapl/staapl.

github.com

GitHub - zwizwa/staapl: A Racket-based Forth / Macro Assembler on steroids for PIC18F

A Racket-based Forth / Macro Assembler on steroids for PIC18F - GitHub - zwizwa/staapl: A Racket-based Forth / Macro Assembler on steroids for PIC18F

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and

How does this compare to flashforth?

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and

FlashForth is a traditional Forth. Self hosted, 16-bit words. Staapl is thin Forth-like wrapper around PIC18 assembly code with pattern matching peephole optimizer. It's an 8-bit compiled Forth, not self-hosted. Relies heavily on Racket module system (some old version).