Re: [colorforth] New Linux 4word

[Terry Loveall <loveall@xxxxxxxxx>]

Frédéric,

> > Have just finished porting 4word to linux. Includes asm 
> > source to compile
> > using NASM version 0.98.33.
> > 
> > URL: http://www.modest-proposals.com/ModProg.htm
> > 
> 
> If nothing else, your work is very interesting to me. I didn't install Nasm
> on my machine so I didn't build and run it, but I read the readme file and
> the source.

To download NASM-0.98.33 goto:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=6208

You can either download the binary or the source to build your own. The only
lib dependency is on libc so if you are running a recent linux distro, the
binary should suffice.

> It seems to me that your 4word and my 4IM are close to each other. But you
> are one step ahead of me because you get ride of the classic
> interpret/compile switch with [ and ], and use colors instead. Still, it
> isn't a CF clone cause it doesn't use huffman compression. So it seems to me
> that it's half-way between (neo-)classic Forth and CF. For this reason, I
> find 4word very educationnal: it shows a possible and understandable path
> from Forth to the CF technology. What are your future plans about 4word? Do
> you plan to introduce huffman compression?

4word was designed to aid communications between humans as much as it was
designed to efficiently communicate with the computer. The bulk of human
communication is in ASCII format, e.g. email and web browsing. Saw no point in
having two different text interfaces.

4word, as such, technically qualifies as a color forth because it can both
compile and generate color source. But when looked at in its most fundamental
guise, it is actually simplified machine forth.

Provided with the package are two different sources for the text editor, one
written in pure ASCII and the other written in color encoded ASCII, which are
symantically identical. They generate indentical binaries.

The bulk of the porting and additional development of the editor for this
release was done using my 'workbench' text editor, edx, on the pure ASCII
source. Only afterwards, was the recursively applied color editor used upon
its color source to finalize for release.

Chucks's colorForth is a marvel in ingenuity. His 'find' loop is only 39 bytes
in length, but the cost is using his huffman encoded interface. For me, it is
so painfull to use that I am forced into moving everything closer to the
development/planning stage. The result is optimized communication between me
and the computer but at the expense of readability and communicability to
others.

4word was written for implementing the ideas discussed recently about putting
together a 'communications node'. The first step was to write an ASCII text
editor that could be used both for development and for communication.

The other source file in 4word, 4wdbg.p, is a 'debugger'. Essentially, it is a
4word disassembler that displays the stack contents and enables execution of
a 'call' at the point of disassembly. Kind of a 'forth' single stepper.

For a real single step minimalist debugger see:
http://ald.sourceforge.net/
Much simpler than gdb and has shorter aliases.

Regards,
Terry Loveall

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