2022-12-04 04:56:08 <Bobsyouruncle> Is anyone around?
2022-12-04 04:56:18 <dave0       > hi Bobsyouruncle
2022-12-04 04:56:25 <Bobsyouruncle> hey dave
2022-12-04 04:56:36 <Bobsyouruncle> are you busy?
2022-12-04 04:56:44 <dave0       > nope?
2022-12-04 04:56:55 <dave0       > i must warn you i am still a forth newbie!
2022-12-04 04:57:24 <Bobsyouruncle> you may be more educated than I am. I'm right out of the box, noob
2022-12-04 04:58:37 <Bobsyouruncle> I built a circuit that works but there is something wrong with the code. I utilize arduino nano's ADC for the RF detector. Do you know anything about ADC's?
2022-12-04 04:59:10 <dave0       > no sorry :-(
2022-12-04 04:59:29 <dave0       > there should be an ardunio channel on libera somewhere
2022-12-04 05:00:08 <Bobsyouruncle> there may be, but will they know Forth?
2022-12-04 05:00:16 <dave0       > ah there is   #arduino
2022-12-04 05:00:27 <dave0       > Bobsyouruncle: only one way to find out!
2022-12-04 05:00:50 <Bobsyouruncle> I'm on it
2022-12-04 13:55:47 <KipIngram   > The traveler has returneth.  Daughter launched into the joys of matrimony.  Here's hoping, at least.  :-)
2022-12-04 14:04:40 <KipIngram   > Hell of a lot of driving, though.
2022-12-04 14:04:58 <KipIngram   > Still have to take the tux back to the store this afternon - they wanted that back the day after.
2022-12-04 14:05:26 <KipIngram   > And I paid them enough to have it for the one time - I don't wanna give 'em any more.
2022-12-04 14:07:34 <KipIngram   > Bobsyouruncle: one of the great things about Forth is that it's easy to learn.  You get better at actually using it with practice, an that can take a little while like anything else; there's a "mind set shift" involved with it.  But the "rules" so to speak are easy as pie to get down.  And actually being a total noob might help - it might mean you don't have much of a mind set yet that needs shifting.
2022-12-04 14:07:53 <KipIngram   > I did my first programming on a stack-based HP calculator back in college, so Forth has always felt really natural to me.
2022-12-04 14:08:06 <KipIngram   > Maybe you'll have a similar experience.
2022-12-04 19:08:59 <KipIngram   > So, I think something lacking in Forth generally is ability to handle complex literals.  We run into this earliest with strings, but it really applies to a whole class of things.  Strings, arrays, lists, etc.  The most direct way to deal with it is to write a "literal parsing word" and you call out that word before giving the literal in your input stream.  Then it's responsible for everything from there to
2022-12-04 19:09:01 <KipIngram   > the end of the literal.  What else you have to do (how you store that literal, etc.) might create other requirements, most likely some sort of memory management like a heap.  But then you can leave a pointer to the literal on the stack, and we're back then to a normal Forth flow.
2022-12-04 19:09:39 <KipIngram   > When I'm thinking just about strings I tend to name that parser word s" but if it were more general a different name would probably be more appropriate.
2022-12-04 19:11:04 <KipIngram   > I was thinking over the weekend, memory-wise, about just a ring buffer that I stored things in, and just wrapped around and re-used it over and over.  Maybe it would have some ability to detect wrapping over something still outstanding, or maybe I just make it big enough that I can "not worry" about that.
2022-12-04 19:11:47 <KipIngram   > Try to avoid getting into the whole business of a real heap with reference counts and so forth, which I guess would be the "proper" way to solve that problem.
2022-12-04 19:15:13 <KipIngram   > NUMBER could also be modified to recognize "first words of literals," and fork off to the literal parser, if you wanted to avoid having to insert a parsing word in the right places.  At that point, though, you've busted the literal up in to "first word" and "the rest," so it's not terribly elegant.
2022-12-04 19:16:57 <KipIngram   > I guess re-windiNG >IN wouldn't be out of the question.
2022-12-04 19:16:58 <Zarutian_iPad> I been toying with the idea of incorporating the object system I have described more fully into a Forth
2022-12-04 19:17:25 <KipIngram   > Ah, similar thoughts, then.  I wouldn't call my thoughts a fully formed object system, but there may be some shared issues.
2022-12-04 19:18:05 <KipIngram   > I want to think that someone here (maybe crc?) has some sort of "rotating storage" system that handles PAD type stuff in his system.
2022-12-04 19:18:22 <KipIngram   > Someone mentioned something sometime.  :-)
2022-12-04 19:18:43 <Zarutian_iPad> basically, each word definition becomes an object with refs to the words it uses
2022-12-04 19:18:54 <crc         > I use a rotating buffer for temporary strings & arrays in my systems
2022-12-04 19:19:18 <KipIngram   > One of my big waffles back and forth is whether or not to include a simple memory manager at the ground floor.  There are things that make it useful.
2022-12-04 19:19:31 <KipIngram   > But SIMPLE - nothing too fancy.
2022-12-04 19:19:56 <Zarutian_iPad> hmm… but that means the return stack must be empty when garbage collection is to happen
2022-12-04 19:19:59 <KipIngram   > A simple fixed size thing that you take management responsibility for is just such an easy thing to put together.
2022-12-04 19:20:44 <KipIngram   > Um, you're talking about your thoughts there?
2022-12-04 19:20:53 <Zarutian_iPad> (cant have stale refs on the returnstack)
2022-12-04 19:21:12 <Zarutian_iPad> yeb
2022-12-04 19:21:19 <KipIngram   > Yeah, makes sense.
2022-12-04 19:21:46 <KipIngram   > That is the thing about Forth - stuff you've gotten onto either stack has a tendency to become "anonymous."
2022-12-04 19:22:16 <KipIngram   > Stuff you want to keep up with about it you just have to know.
2022-12-04 19:22:59 <Zarutian_iPad> which is fine by me as I plan to run this event loop style and gc would be done between event loop turns
2022-12-04 19:23:08 <KipIngram   > Re: strings, I usually figure any string with length > 1 would go into this ring buffer, and an address for it would land on the stack.
2022-12-04 19:23:22 <KipIngram   > Strings of length 1 would go directly on the stack as a char.
2022-12-04 19:23:46 <KipIngram   > Then I could do stuff like s" string alpha beta" s" " split
2022-12-04 19:24:01 <KipIngram   > That would end with the address of an array of strings on the stack, and the array in the ring buffer.
2022-12-04 19:29:21 <KipIngram   > Some really heavy application would probably need some more permanently reliable memory management, but with a decent size ring you could do bits of string processing here and there and just be done before it wrapped back around.
2022-12-04 19:29:41 <KipIngram   > String or other "array like" stuff.
2022-12-04 19:31:10 <KipIngram   > Another thing I've thought at times, though, is to have a Lisp system running alongside the Forth, in an entirely different RAM region and doing it's own usual thing - there would be a workable way of passing stuff between them.  Then string work might better live over there.
2022-12-04 19:31:49 <KipIngram   > When we talked about Lisp in here a year ago or so I delved into it a little and decided it looked pretty straightforward to put a basic one together.
2022-12-04 19:33:25 <KipIngram   > I guess Chuck would make the Forth and Lisp different colors (not that he would ever do this at all).
2022-12-04 19:34:12 <KipIngram   > But lisp" ..." would work too.