Re: +=

[Reuben Thomas <rrt@...>]

> I would equally well hate what Chuck Moore made out of Forth.  Compare
> FIG-Forth/Forth79 (slim and elegant) to ColorForth (stripped down to
> an ugly something).

To me FIG-Forth/Forth 79 are both rather arbitrary in many of their design
choices; nowhere near as elegant as Lua 4.0. An ANSI system with equivalent
functionality and all the deprecated bits removed would be rather more
elegant, to me, and probably about the same size. (Unfortunately, it
wouldn't be ANSI any longer, though.)

ColorForth, I agree, is rather anorexic; e.g. I don't really understand how
it can be better to say

X X X X X

rather than

5 0 DO X LOOP

although I do like the idea of colour tokens; it's sort of a Forth take on
coloured syntax highlighting, and it does make sense in a curious sort of
way.

But this is a Lua list, not a Forth list. Lua 4.0, I must admit, has got to
the stage where, apart from a few corners such as upvalues, it's difficult
to see how the language could be further improved without damaging it. The
implementation and API are another matter, though they're pretty darn good
too. It's definitely time to start concentrating on how Lua is used: it's
the sort of language which, like C, C++ and Forth (all for slightly
different reasons) gives you so much freedom that it's advantageous to work
out dialects in which to actually write your programs. The obvious examples
in Lua would be implementing OO and modules: both can be done pretty much
without changing the language, but need a certain amount of discipline
before they work properly.

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