Re: on Perl (was: Command Languages Versus Programming Languages)

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.)