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The Best Programming Language for the End of the World
https://www.wired.com/story/forth-collapse-os-apocalypse-programming-language/
#forth
#forth
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

Devine Lu Linvega
Devine Lu Linvega
• •

"The low-level nature of Forth, while key to its processing power, made programming feel foreign. It uses postfix, a form of mathematical notation that renders 2 + 1 as 2 1+ and which I found neither intuitive nor even really legible."

Part of me is kind of jealous, I wish I could forget it all, and learn it all back over again. It's such a nice little adventure to dive into this fresh.

in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

and Null
and Null
• •
I hit it off with post-fix so fast. Sure math can be a bit tangled, but given how much of programming is piping data to more operations, it quickly starts to shine. It's why Lisp is my nightmare cause I constantly feel like I'm thinking backwards, buried under a rats nest of parenthesis.
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

interzoneboy
interzoneboy
• •
I think I’ll make it my project for the next little while. My programming obsession this past decade has been categories, monads, arrows, functors… Maybe time for something completely different.
in reply to interzoneboy

Devine Lu Linvega
Devine Lu Linvega
• •
@interzoneboy it'll be fun, starting new on something so far away from function programming, you'll do strides in no time 😀
@interzoneboy
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

Dieu
Dieu
• •
I got started with FORTH a few months ago. I stopped again because interests come and go and one can only gently welcome them and bid them farewell when the time comes, but it was a lot of fun back then.
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

inscript
inscript
• •
stoked on this. this juxtaposition is such a beautiful irony tho…
This entry was edited (1 week ago)
in reply to inscript

Devine Lu Linvega
Devine Lu Linvega
• •
@inscript yeah, I can't see ads but I'd love to see if it's like Exxxon mobile or something that actively accelerates climate apocalypse.
@inscript
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

Tokyo By Bike
Tokyo By Bike
• •
I’d heard that in a truly apocalyptic scenario Z80 assembly would be good to know as you could scavenge Z80 chips out of so many devices. But I guess that’s changing now.
in reply to Tokyo By Bike

Devine Lu Linvega
Devine Lu Linvega
• •
@tokyobybike there aren't that many chips around after that, that you can pull out easily without a microscope, but in any case, a generation notion of how computer programs map to assembly can't hurt, whether it's from z80, m68k, etc..
@Tokyo By Bike
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

Tokyo By Bike
Tokyo By Bike
• •
I’d heard that in a truly apocalyptic scenario Z80 assembly would be good to know as you could scavenge Z80 chips out of so many devices. But I guess that’s changing now.
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

deuill
deuill
• •

Semi-related: Leo Brodie's Thinking Forth is an excellent read, and CC-licensed, even if you think you won't ever write a single line of Forth. So much in the philosophy of the language speaks to how we ought to think about software in general:

https://thinking-forth.sourceforge.net/

Thinking Forth

thinking-forth.sourceforge.net
in reply to deuill

Devine Lu Linvega
Devine Lu Linvega
• •
@alex yeah, it's mentioned in the article, it's usually what we recommend to people breaking into forth. Excellent series of books.
@deuill
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

Kototama
Kototama
• •
did Dupras discovered Forth through you?
in reply to Kototama

Devine Lu Linvega
Devine Lu Linvega
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@kototama no, it's the opposite. I started learning forth after learning about CollapseOS 😀
@Kototama
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

WimⓂ️
WimⓂ️
• •

I know it's not cool to say this, esp. on merv, but I think this "best" claim is merely personal preference. I have programmed in Forth and I don't think it has any inherent advantages that are unique to it.

Suppose society collapses tomorrow, our scavenged hardware will have at least 32-bit processors and gigabytes of memory. It is quite hard to find commodity hardware with dramatically lower specs than that.

We can write and run compilers or interpreters for any language we dream up.

Our problem will be one of communication.

in reply to WimⓂ️

Devine Lu Linvega
Devine Lu Linvega
• •
@wim_v12e ah you don't have to try to convince me of that, I totally agree.
@WimⓂ️
in reply to WimⓂ️

WimⓂ️
WimⓂ️
• •
I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. If it came across like that, I'd better delete it.
in reply to WimⓂ️

Devine Lu Linvega
Devine Lu Linvega
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@wim_v12e No, no, it's cool. It's good people see it, I think for some reason folks think that this is all about digging out NES from landfill and bootstrapping a new superpower from them, and it's good to try and break the stupid image apart. Leave it up : )
@WimⓂ️
in reply to Devine Lu Linvega

WimⓂ️
WimⓂ️
• •
All right 🙂 The idea of digging up a NES from landfill is appealing though. Could be something for a short comic.

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