[ColorForth] x86 asm or C?

[edrx@xxxxxxxxxx (Eduardo Ochs)]

David Govoni wrote:

> Don't think I'm too crazy, but the inner core might be written in C.
> Since it would have to invoke other code and libraries on the OS,
> writing the core in C makes the most sense. When writing code for an
> OS written in C, start by writing in C.

I'm trying that too. Some extra reasons:

  1) C is not terribly difficult to debug using the tools that I already
  have (gdb, emacs, etc).

  2) I don't know x86 assembly (for x!="80") and I don't want to learn
  it: from my little experience with it I got the impression that I
  don't have enough spare neurones or years in this life.

  3) The propaganda effect: I'm trying to write something that people
  would like to explore and modify. Most people understand C, and
  almost all of my friends hate systems where they can't understand
  the internals, so assembly and ANS-Forth are ruled out. C is then a
  natural candidate for something to play the role of a high-level
  assembly...

  4) In the last years I have spent several hundreds of hours
  programming Forth-related things and exploring existing systems, and
  at most fifteen minutes waiting for my Forth programs to run. I'm
  much more interested in optimizing programmer time than execution
  time.

I know that Jeff might think that I'm doing it all wrong :), but I
want a MachineForth or ColorForth system that I can run on my
GNU/Linux PC while I wait for the $2 computers, and also to convince
more people that Forth and the $2 computers are the way to go. I'm
thinking on a C function that would execute {Machine,Color}Forth
bytecode, and that I can use to build a decent Forth system on.

  Cheers,
    Eduardo Ochs
    http://angg.twu.net/
    http://angg.twu.net/miniforth/TECHREP
    http://angg.twu.net/eev/README.html
    http://angg.twu.net/eev-manifesto.html
    edrx@xxxxxxxxxx

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