garbage collected forths

[Massimo Dentico]

Hendrik Boom wrote:


> The ancient archives of this mailing list contains a discussion
> "types and operators" (Thu, 13 Jun 1996 10:59:04 -0400 (EDT)),

For reference: "types and operators", Nathan Hawkins

http://lists.tunes.org/archives/tunes-lll/1996-June/thread.html


> which I found using Google.  Did any of the proposals for a
> garbage-collected Forth ever see the light of day?

Not that I'm aware of, from our part. But I suggest that you have
a look at these nodes on our Cliki (a Wiki):

- POP-11, http://cliki.tunes.org/POP-11
    Part of Poplog system http://cliki.tunes.org/Poplog
    Most mature, used in British AI community. IIRC dual Virtual
    Machine architecture, GCed, an open stack (Forth-like), an open
    compiler (Run-Time Code Generation) and other goodies.
    Syntax is mostly Algol-like but I think there are no problems
    in manipulating programs (being the compiler open).

- Joy, http://cliki.tunes.org/Joy
    somewhat the "pure" concatenative language, much more
    experimental. GCed.

- Factor, http://cliki.tunes.org/Factor
    a more pratical implementation of "a Forth with GC".
    Evolving at a fast pace. GCed.

- RPL and RPL/2 (Reverse Polish Lisp) http://cliki.tunes.org/RPL
    http://cliki.tunes.org/RPL%2F2
    originally used on HP calculators, a mix of Forth and Lisp.
    Not sure, but probably it is *not* GCed.

and - why not?
- Postscript, http://cliki.tunes.org/PostScript

Tell me if you are interested in type checking stack-based
languages, I have some references to give you.


> If so, it could be an ideal platform to which to port some
> of the work I'm doing on program transformation and verification.
> 
> -- hendrik

Interesting. Do you have a web page about your work?


Regards.

--
Massimo Dentico