Factor - a programming language; very Forth like. I'm playing with it when I get a chance. I'm still not sure about stack based languages. They have nice advantages: factoring out functions is stupidly easy and when the data flow works, it's very elegant. But one cannot understand only part of a function (which is why each function must be small) and, when dealing with > 3 variables, the stack fuzz is crazy. None the less, factor has a good environment (based on jEdit, by the same author) and Erlang like concurrency.
I've had a lot of interest in Factor lately and have been following its development. I don't have any experience in stack languages, so I want to learn its way of thinking.
No, it's not at all. In fact, REBOL started life in version one as basically a version of Scheme. Then, as I understand it, they took out some features they thought added more complexity and inefficiency than they were worth, such as tail call optimization and continuations. Plus, they threw in like a dozen different looping words (though those may have been there in version 1) They still take a very lisp-ish approach to "code is data". In any case, it's very far from a stack language. It's not even postfix.
Carl had previously implemented Forth and Logo, which were both a strong influence on REBOL. I think Carl was aiming for a network-savvy, user-friendly implementation of Postscript. Not that I think it's worth arguing over, but I believe behind the primary fascade of the language, REBOL is stack-based. RT is very secretive about the implementation, so that's a guess. Googling it comes up with a mixed bag of statements about it.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
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(though those may have been there in version 1) They still take a very lisp-ish approach to "code is data". In any case, it's very far from a stack language. It's not even postfix.
FWIW, I believe REBOL is stack-based.