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Date:      Fri, 2 Oct 1998 07:59:40 +0200 (CEST)
From:      Andrzej Bialecki <abial@nask.pl>
To:        Jerry Hicks <jhicks@glenatl.glenayre.com>
Cc:        Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai <asmodai@wxs.nl>, FreeBSD Small <freebsd-small@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   Re: Command-line i/f (Re: PicoBSD) 
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.02A.9810020744220.703-100000@korin.warman.org.pl>
In-Reply-To: <199810012128.RAA29146@jhicks.glenatl.glenayre.com>

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On Thu, 1 Oct 1998, Jerry Hicks wrote:

> > At 12:26 01-10-98 , Andrzej Bialecki wrote:
> > >On Wed, 30 Sep 1998, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai wrote:
> [snips]
> > 
> > >Perhaps this is a dead end, perhaps not.. but now I'm experimenting with
> > >Forth (in fact, its variant: /usr/ports/lang/atlast) - I need this in some
> > >other project as well, and I thought it would be a nice approach.
> > 
> > Forth, forth, isn't that YAPL (Yet Another Programming Language)? *Looking
> > at the ports directory name verifies it* =)
> 
> YAPL with some pretty desirable attributes for this sort of application.  I 
> believe you're right on track Adrzej.

Heh.. Thanks for confirmation :-) Well, I know it's not _that_ popular
<evil grin>, but it gives tremendous programmability and
flexibility, compared to what /bin/sh gives with much more bloat. And I'd
rather not invent YAPL, tripping over the same pitfalls as others did -
Forth is very mature and well defined.

The issue here is not to rewrite all FreeBSD userland in Forth - that
would be stupid. The problem here is to invent such an UI which could
easily be tweaked to individual needs, and allow for automated tasks,
while _incorporating_ necessary userland functions into it. Most
Forth implementations I saw thus far (ca. 6) allow for relatively easy
integration of C modules, accessible as primitive words from inside the
interpreter.

> Have you experienced any 'technical difficulties' with AtLast?  We tried to 
> use it ourselves and beat a hasty retreat to PFE (/usr/ports/lang/forth).  
> (SIGSEGVs)

"Technical difficulties"... :) It's an euphemism - I can't force it to
accept even the basic words (such as (strlit), words) without dumping core
on me. I also looked at PFE - now, this looks much more mature. It's
bigger, though. There is also a this4th I found on Taygeta... and pforth,
gforth... each of them with its own pros and cons. We'll see.

> Feel free to drop me a line if I can help with any Forth issues...

Thanks, I'll remember that! :-)

Andrzej Bialecki

--------------------   ++-------++  -------------------------------------
 <abial@nask.pl>       ||PicoBSD||   FreeBSD in your pocket? Go and see:
 Research & Academic   |+-------+|       "Small & Embedded FreeBSD"
 Network in Poland     | |TT~~~| |    http://www.freebsd.org/~picobsd/
--------------------   ~-+==---+-+  -------------------------------------


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