Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: arch roadmap 2 (and "what's tom up to")

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Andreas Rottmann <address@hidden>

    >           4. Pika Roadmap
    > ? ;-)

Yeah.   The short answers are:

  1. Most furth extensions (new types/commands) should be
     directly useful within Pika Scheme.   The Furth API
     can be reimplemented on top of Pika (I'm just doing
     a "dumb" unoptimized implementation so that Furth 
     doesn't depend on Pika).

  2. Furth can be implemented on the Pika run-time system.
     The Pika run-time system we have so far is close to
     what you'd get if you said "Let me make a run-time system
     for Furth, but heavily optimized for the common case."

  3. The Furth VM will grow up to be the Pika VM.   I've described
     the Furth VM in general terms but haven't laid out the detailed
     set of built-in instructions yet.   As I do, it'll be pretty
     apparent that furth is, in essense, "a forth, running on a 
     (virtual) lisp machine".   Furth will (with the elaboration
     of built-in commands) evolve into a good target for a 
     Pika compiler.


So, really, Furth _is_ pika except that it's a new code base, using a
_very_ simple-minded implementation, providing _only_ the most
dumbed-down version of the foreign function interface, and floating a
forthish thing rather than Scheme as the surface syntax.

Work on the furth VM is a direct contribution to Pika.  Work on the
the furth run-time system is a contribution to the Pika C API.

-t