Release v0.0.2 · bahmanm/bjforth
github.com
The first ever release 🎉 The fruit of 2 years worth of work, v0.0.2 packs a good bunch of features including initial Java inter-op. You can view the list of all the words included in the library. #...
  • bahmanmOP
    2•2 months ago

    Haha…good point! That said bjForth is still a fully indirect threaded Forth. It’s just that instead of assembler and C/C++ it calls Java API to do its job.

    • @solrize
      2•2 months ago

      Traditionally Forth is implemented completely in Forth. Jonesforth is kind of non-traditional in that sense, because it is in assembler.

      • bahmanmOP
        2•2 months ago

        That’s impossible unless you’ve got a Forth machine.

        Where the OS native API is accessible via C API, you’re bound to write, using C/C++/Rust/etc, a small bootstrap programme to then write your Forth on top of. That’s essentially what bjForth is at the moment: the bootstrap using JVM native API.

        Currently I’m working on a set of libraries to augment the 80-something words bjForth bootstrap provides. These libraries will be, as you suggested, written in Forth not Java because they can tap into the power of JVM via the abstraction API that bootstrap primitives provide.

        Hope this makes sense.

        • @solrize
          4•2 months ago

          You start with a working Forth and then bootstrap, sort of like writing a C compiler in C. There is an additional trick that Forth calls metacompilation (note, that term has a different meaning outside of the Forth world). See: https://www.bradrodriguez.com/papers/moving4.htm

          • bahmanmOP
            2•2 months ago

            That’s definitely an interesting idea. Thanks for sharing.

            Though it means that someone down the line must have written a bootstrap programme with C/Assembler to run the host forth.

            In case of jbForth, I decided to write the bootstrap too.