Finding Forth repositories

[larsbrinkhoff]

Hello,

I created a GitHub user to put a star on Forth repositories: http://github.com/stars/ForthStar

I'd be happy to take suggestions for more repositories. The criteria are:

• Detected as Forth by GitHub, and not a false positive. Or
• At least 20% Forth, and not a toy.

[VoidVolker]

https://github.com/VoidVolker/metronom - my old simple free forth program. https://github.com/VoidVolker/spf64 - spf64 linux experiment.

[lowfatcomputing]

reda4, a colorless colorforth just moved to github from google code: https://github.com/phreda4/reda4

[larsbrinkhoff]

@VoidVolker Thanks; those were already starred.

@lowfatcomputing Thanks, I'm keeping an eye out for new Forth repos, but missed that one. If indeed it is a Forth?

[lowfatcomputing]

https://github.com/aviatorRHK/rpiForth

[larsbrinkhoff]

@lowfatcomputing Thanks, but that's not written in Forth, is it?

[lowfatcomputing]

It's Forth code written in assembly. Maybe star it with ForthStar but don't have it detected as Forth?

[mitra42]

https://github.com/mitra42/webforth Javascript version of Forth Runs in Browser without browserify, or webpack or similar (zero dependencies). https://www.mitra.biz/forth/console.html Enough words in Javascript for a minimal interpreter and then rest of it compiled from Forth. Arduino version, metacompiled from javascript.

Intention is to make the metacompiler easier to use, so can develop forth in the browser, and then hit one button to dump a Arduino sketch (or in future other system).

@larsbrinkhoff - its 90% in Forth itself, but Github doesnt auto-detect it for some reason, I've no idea what their algorithm is ?

[larsbrinkhoff]

@mitra42, the algorithm is in GitHub's "linguist". It looks for file extensions, and when languages share extensions it looks at file contents.

You can place an override in the ,gitattributes file, say *.f linguist-language=Forth

[mitra42]

Thanks @larsbrinkhoff - I don't think that will work because the main forth file is index.js - because its actually run in Javascript (which then compiles Forth). That's what allows it to be loaded by a browser.

I think relying on auto-classification for finding Forth repositories might work for finding programs IN forth, is always going to be problematic for finding implementations OF Forth - which are most likely going to be in something else (Assembler, C, JS etc)

[quozl]

As a hack workaround, you could construct your software so that the forth file is separate, but is merged during build. This would also enable syntax highlighting and other integrated development environment features.

Also, many implementations of forth are, I guess, partially self-hosting or metacompiled, where the core may be in the implementation language (C) and the remainder in forth. CForth is one such.

[mitra42]

Sure @quozl I'm going to do that anyway at some point, once I figure out how to make it work in both the browser and node cases (its non-trivial), however its far from the top of the priority list compared to things that make life more powerful for the user. This is a generic problem - implementations OF forth are written, at least partially, in other languages. I don't want to rewrite my code just to convince github's algorithm (which I don't care about) in order to convince @larsbrinkhoff to give it a star (which I do care about )

[quozl]

No worries, glad to help.

[larsbrinkhoff]

@mitra42, now that you pointed out index.js, I see the Forth code clearly.

I do think index.js linguist-language=Forth make GitHub display it as Forth, not JavaScript.

[mitra42]

Yes - that works - and doesnt seem to stop my IDE (WebStorm) understanding its JS

[larsbrinkhoff]

Great! Your star is well deserved. :-)