Gulp Introduction

From Computer Tyme Support Wiki

A little History

My first programming language was binary - leterally! In 1979 I had an IMSAI computer with 8k of ram and only EPROMS for storage. I started programming it from the front panel switches one byte at a time. Eventually I wrote an operating system. Got a keyboard and screen working - then tape - and eventually disk. Managed to convert two languages to run on it. Had a 5k Basic and a Forth compiler. Then I learned Pascal.

Forth was elegant in the way it ran but sucked in the way it read. The inventor of Forth - Chuck Moore - wrote a ver kool little Basic like compiler in Forth that was extremely impressive and later becames the basis for my MarxMenu compiler. Marxmenu is long gone as DOS has faded - but there doesn't exist any languages today that is anywhere near as elegant as MarxMenu is to program in. Today's programmers just don't get it - so I'm posting this in hopes to get something going.

Languages Done Right

Cumputer exist to serve humans and they get faster but not necessarilly easier to use. My idea of a good programming language is one that is intuitive so that the programmer/user can script something together quickly and get code running. Readability is the most important aspect of this language. Nothing else really matters. If it's too slow - get a faster computer. As long as it runs reasonably fast - that's good enough.

Under the Hood

This language has two parts to it. The run time part is similar to Forth. It's an RPN engine that uses a lot of stacks. The interpreter/compiler takes pretty source code and turns it into nasty Forth like RPN code that tokenizes small and runs reasonably fast.