[ColorForth] On with the Evolution

["t" <loveall@xxxxxxxxx>]

There is an interesting thread, this morning, from the linux kernel mail
list:
http://kerneltrap.org/article.php?sid=398
on /.:
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/12/02/1252209.shtml
about evolution/design trade-offs of linux.

With that as background...

Chuck designed and released Forth back sometime in the late sixties/early
seventies to scratch his needs. This evolved into FIG to ANS to meet the
needs of the larger body of Forth users, i.e. it evolved into the 'stable'
lowest common denominator that was easily grasped by the majority of people
using Forth. _Evolved_ not designed.

Present day: Chuck again scratches his needs and colorForth is presented to
the world sometime late in the '90s. I found it in 2000 and used it for
inspiration for some studies of the principles behind colorForth. Others,
Jeff Fox, Sean Pringle... implemented their versions also.

Since Chuck has released his source for the original kernel, there has been
little evolution. Just minor tweeks to get it to run on different
motherboard chipsets. This seems to be an unintentional side effect of going
for a more compact source representation.

What with the non-ASCII source encoding and no easy foreign import/export
source mechanisms there has been no positive way to share new developments.
Add to that, the fact that Chuck has been working on his version of a
minimal network stack and the end result is a frozen colorForth. I, for one,
would have tried my hand at writing a UDP interface except for two reasons:
a) Chuck was in process,
b) Since a) I didn't want to invest my time in doing a worse job that would
be ignored as soon as a) was released.

Haven't been just sitting on my thumb. Rather I have been applying
minimization principles on putting a linux geek user suite (with source)
together, whose binaries all fit on a single flopply: assembly language
debugger, X window manager, X-text editor, web browser, explorer clone file
manager, outlook clone email client. The last three are GTK based but I have
alternative Xaw versions. (Please respond to this paragraph off list. This
is about colorForth, not linux.)

If colorForth is not to miss the window of opportunity, before
systems/programming gets so abstract that only automated solutions are
acceptable, colorForth needs networking within a year.

With builin networking, the source representation of colorForth is
irrelevant. Without it, the kernel will be re-written so that it uses ASCII
source, with all of the common tools and OSs to network the evolutionary
changes.

Either way, let the evolution begin...

Regards,
Terry Loveall

------------------------

To Unsubscribe from this list, send mail to Mdaemon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx with:
unsubscribe ColorForth
as the first and only line within the message body
Problems   -   List-Admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Main ColorForth site   -   http://www.colorforth.com