[gforth] a dataflow / point-free perspective on Forth programming

[Terrence Brannon]

On Sun, Mar 7, 2010 at 9:43 AM, Anton Ertl
<address@hidden> wrote:

>
> You ain't seen nothing yet.  Or, in other words, this is not an
> example that would be considered as having a lot of stack dancing by
> most Forth programmers.

lol. That's what I'm seeing. And it perplexes me. I dont understand
why someone would want to detract away from the basic dataflow with
the mechanics of preparing arguments for the next word.

It's almost like none of them have read about the concept of
abstraction from the text "Structure and Interpretation of Computer
Programs" (http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-10.html)

I see Forth as a way to chain together words, not a way to chain
together stack operations.

>
> Your rewrite appears to be an example of overfactoring.

I love my rewrite (http://gist.github.com/323976). It reminds me of
what I saw in "Thinking Forth"
(http://www.forth.com/starting-forth/sf1/sf1.html)
that excited me in the first place -
 : WASHER  WASH SPIN RINSE SPIN ;

and you could say I am aiming for the Haskell point-free style.

I am trying to stay focused on the flow of data through operations and
staring at a bunch of stack manipulations greatly inhibits that IMHO.