Thinking FORTH

a language and philosophy for solving problems

300 pages

English language

Published Jan. 5, 1984 by Prentice-Hall.

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4 stars (5 reviews)

3 editions

A great book about Forth and about programming

4 stars

Thinking Forth is one of the very few books on this very interesting programming language that goes beyond the syntax and into the philosophy of the language. This is important because Forth is very different to other programming language, due to its explicit use of the stack and its dictionary-based structure. These changes make a significant difference to what good code looks like in Forth compared to other languages... The functions are very short and build up from low to high level, resulting in a domain-specific language that is an expression of the problem being solved and the individual programmer's approach to understanding and solving the problem.

The book contains a number of relatively simple but not trivial examples to illustrate good approaches and to point out common pitfalls. The style of writing, like Leo Brodie's other book 'Starting Forth' is relaxed, and makes liberal use of cartoons, which may …

Review of 'Thinking FORTH' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

The high praise for this book was well-earned. It just goes to show that the problems we've been dealing with since the dawn of programming have remained, largely, the same. While this is definitely a Forth-oriented book (and rooted in its time), the philosophy of simplicity and the encouragement to turn a problem on its head until it can be expressed simply is utterly timeless. The interviews were great and the examples were well chosen. In the year 2022, we still don't have the answers to a lot of these questions. Just opinions and more questions.

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Subjects

  • FORTH (Computer program language)