FORTH plusminus, was Re: [f-cpu] Winograd DCT on my seul.org account

[Andreas Romeyke <art1@it-netservice.de>]

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Hello, 

> > Remember, forth can do this... and surplus you can test forth-code
> > interactively...
> 
> Forth is an incredible language but it can't do all i want,
> or i would use it for a loooong time. It also introduces a lot of things that
> can interfere with the algorithms, or at least make you forget about
> what you want to do. Finally, the largest scope that i could globally
> optimize by hand is 100 or 120 instructions per block. we need to go beyond
> that. Forth is the contrary of a dataflow graph analysis tool because
> it over-serialises the computations.

I disagreed. 
First is Forth only a little more than a MACRO-library of
assembler-code.
Second it is small and easy to learn
3-th there are forth-dialects coming with an object-oriented manner
4-th it is fast enough, compileable and interpretable 
5-th we can implement a forth-interpreter/compiler for F-CPU in much
easier way than for C and Co. 
6-th we can test the FC0 as fast as possible
7-th We should have the focus on the hardware-site of F-CPU, we need a
higher language only for testing the core, is not it?
8-th we can bootstrap the FC0, it is EPROM programmable
9-th we become a set of useful ASM-instructions

My only disadvantage was, that a mapping of forth-technique to
register-based cpu could be ineffective, but after some words with
compiler-developers, should this handable...

IMHO all points fullfilled:

> > - easy readability, easy learning, easy debugging.
> > - easy simulation of unimplemented parts (e.g. like
> >   the test stimulation possibilities in VHDL)
> > - integrated abstract layer documentation scheme
> >   that could be extended to automatic code generation.

An adaption of a special language should be done later.

Bye Andreas

PS.: PFE - portable forth environment has a gzipped tarball-size of 134k
including docs and examples. The extracted C-Code is 180k. PFE is ANS
conform. 

PPS.: we did not need a full ANS compatible forth environment, we can do
it simpler and smaller 
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