This is not an amazing book by any means - but if you're into the Forth language/ecosystem like I am right now, it's pretty high on the list of things to read. It's Moore's own explanation of: 1) What he built, 2) How he reasons about a self-bootstrapping programming language (namely, Forth), and 3) His general philosophy of software development.

I gotta say, while you can argue about how Forth helps or hurts the cause, his First Principle of keeping it simple is spot on! And he's practical about it too.

I like that we get an opinionated take on a variety of topics such as the pros and cons of word (function) name lookup strategies, etc. I love how practical he is about complexity vs. storage concerns vs. compute time concerns.

It's a bit rambling and meandering and is not a highly professional and polished book. According to the introduction, it's a manuscript that essentially sat in a drawer for decades. A later chapter even has a note that goes something like: "I'm not sure why I thought this part was needed, but here it is anyway..." Which I enjoy. Moore is human too!