Melding of Forth and Smalltalk

[Doug]

I ran across this document today and found it to be an interesting read:

http://www.cs.pdx.edu/~harry/musings/Sm ... erview.pdf

I am a long time Forther so I understand Oforth's Forth heritage pretty well. But reading the SmalltalkOverview document shed light on the roots of a lot of the Oforth syntax with which I was unfamiliar. Oforth syntax like | i x y I for local variable declaration and the use of code blocks with [ ... ] and flow control syntax like flag ifTrue: [ ... ] and flag ifFalse: [ ... ], appear to have a strong Smalltalk influence. Franck please correct me if I got this wrong.

It's all good, IMO. Franck has taken the great ideas from both Smalltalk and Forth and melded them together to create something new, interesting, and highly productive.

-Doug Hoffman

[Franck]

Hello Doug

Yes, you are right, some constructions are inspired from Smalltalk.
Nevertheless, imo, Smalltalk had mainly influence on some word names and syntax.

If we talk about philosophy and mechanisms, I think that, undoubtedly, Forth comes in first.

Regards,
Franck