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From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.unix.programmer,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: on Perl (was: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages)
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 2024 10:14:38 +0200
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On 16/04/2024 00:58, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Apr 2024 15:29:51 -0700, John Ames wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 15 Apr 2024 22:12:23 -0000 (UTC) Lawrence D'Oliveiro
>> <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> Especially a language that is particularly versatile and adaptable to
>>> defining DSLs.
>>
>> *waits for a Forth-head to chime in*

What about Scala?  I don't the language myself, but I believe it is 
popular as a basis for DSL's.

> 
> Forth? Not a chance. That’s only fit for a museum. Whatever interesting
> features it might have had were carried over to PostScript, which took
> things to the next level.

Forth is alive and well, albeit not very common.  It is used in embedded 
systems - it is almost certainly the smallest language and run-time 
system where you can have a extendable high-level language, and runs 
directly on even very small microcontrollers.  Within the same language, 
you can glide between higher level words and Forth-style assembly for 
low-level code.  And you can pretty much freely choose where you draw 
the line between pre-compiled code for maximal efficiency and 
interpreted code for maximal convenience and development speed.  I've 
even seen a system with a soft processor (i.e., one made in a hardware 
design language for use in FPGA's or gate array ASICs) written in Forth, 
where you can move the boundaries between the parts that are implemented 
in hardware and the parts in software.

Forth is also the basis for the assembly and code for most stack-based 
processors, which are used whenever the smallest die area is needed.  In 
particular, 4-bit microcontroller programming is dominated by Forth. 
You don't normally see such chips, because they are hidden inside 
devices and these days only found within other chips (the last 
general-purpose easily available 4-bit microcontroller line was 
discontinued about a decade ago).

New Forth-native hardware has been made in recent times, such as the 
GreenArray chips.

The latest Forth standard is from 2012, I believe.

Forth is certainly old, and certainly a very unusual language that is 
hard for outsiders to comprehend, and certainly not a particularly 
popular language, but it is equally certainly still used.

(I am not a "Forth-head", and know only a little of the language, but 
happen to have learned a bit from real Forth-heads.)