Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you provide more details?
There's a difference between "x is not negative" and "x is positive" (¬(x 0)). Why shouldn't a similar subtlety (or a larger one) exist in prosaic language?
Why not just say "x is zero"?
Collapse OS – Why Forth?
151–160 of 172 posts
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#152If I had to put my finger on why Forth is hard for most programmers, it's like this: the structured program theorem suggests using sequence, selection, and iteration to control program logic. Assembly code on hardware architectures will assign all meaning sequence-relative, late-binding the selection and iteration. Forth doubles down on this sequence-first approach through a more versatile assignment mode(the stack)…
That's just about right. To put it more concisely: Forth only works well when used properly: as a very easy to extend DSL.
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Technology isn't a complete panacea, but humans in general are highly adaptable. History seems to indicate... The most critical processes for human success - population growth - is an exponential process. Pretty much all of it happened in the age of fossil fuels. We have 200 years (out of 200,000 of human history according to Wikipedia) of experience with global populations >1 billion and we are currently cruising…
> History doesn't show us being adaptable, history shows if something happens to the solid/liquid carbon supply around 7/8 of us are expected to die. I disagree. Look at the pandemic response here vs. the Spanish flu, or the Bubonic plague. We also have plenty of alternate energy sources to diversify our power infrastructure, and many nations are taking these steps. The past few decades have been a series of lessons…
If you're not terrified at the Western response to the Coronavirus, you're not paying attention.
The low systemic risk events we are living through now, prove that the Emperor is naked. An event that produces moderate to serious systemic shocks would be our DOOM.
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me, the main problem with forth is a lack of names -- most languages (functional or imperative or even declarative) assign names to things -- things like function parameters, temporary values and so on. Even Prolog, which is as far from traditional structural program as one can go, usually has descriptive names for unbound variables. Compared to this, Forth is very name-terse. You get "function names" at best, an…
Note that Forth also supports locals. These will consume and remove N members from the stack so you can summon them as needed prior to calling the words. But as someone that really got into Forth this year, I can assure that it does get better once you get more familiar with the language. I used to write commenting the stack effects on each line and now I barely need them as I write words in one sitting without that…
What does a local variable mean in the context of Forth? Data guaranteed to be in registers, like the in-CPU stack of 8008?
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you provide more details?
“not unreasonable” expands to “You could provide reasons that seem valid, even if I don't agree that they support your conclusion.” “reasonable” expands to something more like “The reasons you have provided support your conclusion.” “reasonable” can work in this case, but it doesn't state as clearly that the speaker disagrees with your conclusions. In a more general sense the “not un-” pattern is a marker for somethi…
The point of the comment was not questioning the meaning of the sentence. The phrase "not unreasonable" is quite common. With some effort, we can decpher the meaning. The point was that there are other ways to express that meaning, using fewer negatives.
For example, something like this:
"I don't consider it unreasonable to believe that supply chains will survive to 2030, so please, don't feel attacked by my beliefs."
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I rather disagree with your first sentence. Forth is not Lisp, nor is Prolog or APL Lisp, and none of these languages are one short conceptual leap away from the others. Even a very rudimentary Forth can express concepts which have only hazy correspondences in a Lisp, like words which twiddle the return stack or yield a variable number of results on the parameter stack. I find it misleading at best to casually intima…
The core of Lisp is a small set of rules about abstraction and application using lists. Forth, at its core, can be formalized with the exact same set of rules (one to one correspondence) but with stacks and composition as the operator. The languages are very VERY different, but there is a similar bare bone formal framework at the bottom.
I'm very new to Forth, but find this intuition really appealing; do you know of any examples that demonstrate/prove this correspondence?
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#157Love this project. I wonder why not make it run on smartphones? I'd imagine that's the vast majority of computers out there today. Easier to find a working smartphone than retro consoles.
He explained that a bit here[1]. The project targets a world wherein existing computers have degraded to a point beyond repair and we have to scavenge parts that can be retrofitted. His reasoning is that under such conditions, parts that can be thru-hole soldered such as 8-bit z80 CPUs will be much more robust than surface mounted ARM chips.
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
The core of Lisp is a small set of rules about abstraction and application using lists. Forth, at its core, can be formalized with the exact same set of rules (one to one correspondence) but with stacks and composition as the operator. The languages are very VERY different, but there is a similar bare bone formal framework at the bottom.
I'm very new to Forth, but find this intuition really appealing; do you know of any examples that demonstrate/prove this correspondence?
It’s only the newer “concatenative” languages that have explored this forms correspondence. See this essay by Jon Purdy (author of Kitten) on “why concatenative languages matter”:
http://evincarofautumn.blogspot.com/2012/02/why-concatenativ...
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#159> Forth doesn't elegantly describe complex algorithms… However, this mental pain does makes you question your need for complexity… This is something that I think few developers are familiar with and is hard to describe with words. It needs to be experienced. Nice framing, that it’s not an intellectual argument you can make to justify the benefits of drawbacks (i.e. an infamous red flag of stockholm syndrome), so you…
Or there are experiences which have hard to describe intangible qualities that are hard to put logically. Not sure why you have to reach for stockholm syndrome here.
my comment was way off the mark, didn’t realized it sounded sarcastic. i was instead trying to appreciate his approach to the intangible—pointing to direct experience to avoid stockholm criticism.
Re: Collapse OS – Why Forth?
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
> History doesn't show us being adaptable, history shows if something happens to the solid/liquid carbon supply around 7/8 of us are expected to die. I disagree. Look at the pandemic response here vs. the Spanish flu, or the Bubonic plague. We also have plenty of alternate energy sources to diversify our power infrastructure, and many nations are taking these steps. The past few decades have been a series of lessons…
If you're not terrified at the Western response to the Coronavirus, you're not paying attention. The low systemic risk events we are living through now, prove that the Emperor is naked. An event that produces moderate to serious systemic shocks would be our DOOM.
Regardless of how insufficient the response was, it was still far swifter and more effective than the response to the Spanish Flu. Also, the knock-on effects will influence significant changes for years come. We learn slowly, but we learn.