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Re: [colorforth] forth taxonomy


Mark Slicker wrote:
> like to implement meta-compilation in colorForth which does not seem
> obvious to me.

Chuck has said that rewriting colorforth in colorforth is on
his list, but he has lots of other stuff higher on the list
that will happen first. Send me some email about it.

Maybe sometime we can have a colorforth day and get
together with Chuck and other colorforth players who
can show up and toss around some code and ideas.

> > A well known classification is by threading scheme:
> > - Token threaded
> > - Indirect threaded code
> > - direct thread code
> > - subroutine threaded code
> > - native code
> 
> Thanks for this information, I found descriptions of these different
> methods through google. It is interesting to understand the different
> methods even though my particular environment seems to imply native code.

People rarely list it, but another variant I have seen
was called bit-threading.  The versions I have seen were
like direct threading except that one bit in a word
(either msb or lsb) would mean list or code.  This
was implemented in hardware on some chips but can
easily be done in software. On a system where one
places lists in only the upper/lower part of memory
then one bit will always distinguish whether what
is there is an address list or code.  

Native code can also be broken down depending on
the mechanisms used to generate the native code.  
And people can create systems which mix some of
the properties from the above list.

Indirect-subroutine threaded for instance...

best wishes,
Jeff Fox

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