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Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

galileo.phys.virginia.edu

11–20 of 33 posts

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#11
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forth is still alive and kicking!

Of course! Have friends who work with it on a daily basis. My comment was mostly tongue in cheek, didn't mean that Forth is completely dead. Usually when seeing Forth though, it's bit older stuff than say PHP. My friends for example, are stuck trying to refactor very old code, written in Forth. Didn't mean no harm :)

What do your friends do with it? It’s very high on my priority list for new languages to learn, and finding a job with it someday would be very interesting.

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#12
post #7

FSM is something I've always been curious about but I can't seem to find any good intro on. Does anyone have a good recommendations? I sort of don't want one tied to a specific language but rather one that helps me understand it from a conceptual level. Thanks!

If you're looking for a more theoretical overview, the first chapter of Sipster's Introduction to the Theory of Computation is a really solid into to FSA and automata in general.

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course! Have friends who work with it on a daily basis. My comment was mostly tongue in cheek, didn't mean that Forth is completely dead. Usually when seeing Forth though, it's bit older stuff than say PHP. My friends for example, are stuck trying to refactor very old code, written in Forth. Didn't mean no harm :)

What do your friends do with it? It’s very high on my priority list for new languages to learn, and finding a job with it someday would be very interesting.

You might want to actually use it first before thinking you want to use it more. Forth is simple because it is primitive and passes the cognitive load on to you.

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#14
post #7

FSM is something I've always been curious about but I can't seem to find any good intro on. Does anyone have a good recommendations? I sort of don't want one tied to a specific language but rather one that helps me understand it from a conceptual level. Thanks!

Hopcroft Ullman's Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation has good section on state machines and their connection to Regular Expressions

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course! Have friends who work with it on a daily basis. My comment was mostly tongue in cheek, didn't mean that Forth is completely dead. Usually when seeing Forth though, it's bit older stuff than say PHP. My friends for example, are stuck trying to refactor very old code, written in Forth. Didn't mean no harm :)

What do your friends do with it? It’s very high on my priority list for new languages to learn, and finding a job with it someday would be very interesting.

One set work with maintaining old software for a national bank and the other set work with software for a huge international company that are not IT focused but ended up with software and firmware that just been ticking along since forever.

I'm not jealous and don't think I would bear working like that every day for months. Take a hard look and try to build software with Forth before you try to use it professionally.

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#16
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forth is still alive and kicking!

Of course! Have friends who work with it on a daily basis. My comment was mostly tongue in cheek, didn't mean that Forth is completely dead. Usually when seeing Forth though, it's bit older stuff than say PHP. My friends for example, are stuck trying to refactor very old code, written in Forth. Didn't mean no harm :)

None taken - agree Forth's slightly older language.

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#17
post #7

FSM is something I've always been curious about but I can't seem to find any good intro on. Does anyone have a good recommendations? I sort of don't want one tied to a specific language but rather one that helps me understand it from a conceptual level. Thanks!

Hopcroft Ullman's Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation has good section on state machines and their connection to Regular Expressions

That book is amazing. I donated mine to my hometown library maybe 20 years ago, or more, but should have kept it.

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#18
post #7

FSM is something I've always been curious about but I can't seem to find any good intro on. Does anyone have a good recommendations? I sort of don't want one tied to a specific language but rather one that helps me understand it from a conceptual level. Thanks!

Hopcroft Ullman's Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages and Computation has good section on state machines and their connection to Regular Expressions

Thank you!!! Its relationship to regex is actually precisely the part that piqued my interest.

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#19
post #7

FSM is something I've always been curious about but I can't seem to find any good intro on. Does anyone have a good recommendations? I sort of don't want one tied to a specific language but rather one that helps me understand it from a conceptual level. Thanks!

I made a visual cheat-sheet here: https://excalidraw.com/#json=5149387806212096,XD-zzKj7vlSIgw...

Re: Finite State Machines in Forth (1995)

#20

With the veritable flurry of state machine posts today[0,1] I thought I'd (re)submit[2] one of my favorite posts on finite state machines in Forth. The specific example is of number input routine allows signed decimal numbers without power-of-10 exponents (fixed-point, in FORTRAN parlance) and comes from the author's book Scientific Forth, where a fuller example is used ... to determine whether a piece of text is a p…

A project to create a Creative Commons version of Dr. Noble’s book was started, but doesn’t seem very active lately [0]. The lead even received permission from Dr. Noble’s widow [1].

[0] https://github.com/Josefg/Scientific_FORTH [1] https://github.com/Josefg/Scientific_FORTH/blob/master/Conse...

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