RE: merging edit time and run time

On Tue, 10 May 2005, Roger Levy wrote:

>
>> It looks like a statement from an immature programmer.
>> 
> i agree. he did make me think though, which was his goal. i'm not buying the 
> "revolution" aspect of it (pretensious).  but his essay made me think of 
> colorforth's source code, how in a way it is just a very flexible database 
> rather than text.  also, didn't his fields that held "concrete example 
> values" remind you of magenta variables?  his source code was "alive" in a 
> way that definetely reminded me of colorForth source code.  at the same 
> time... i am definetely skeptical about whether or not his system is really 
> an improvement.  it seemed to pander to a sort of proliferating laziness... 
> or could i be wrong??
> you gotta give the guy credit for trying, and for daring to be different.  i 
> think that one day usability in Forth could be enhanced, has anybody thought 
> about the idea of "edit time" behavior?  i.e. being able to program the 
> editor as well as the compiler, which we already can do. just wondering 
> because it has crossed my mind several times.

Chuck has thought of this, I dug up an email I had written, a transcript 
of Chuck's visit to an online Forth chat[1].

I'm eager to build these things, a colorForth browser, and a colorForth 
web server. I think both would use FML as a representation. To facilitate 
this I wish to have colorForth written in colorForth so that the the 
editor and colorForth environment are easily modifiable. This is what I am 
working on at the moment.

[1] http://www.strangegizmo.com/forth/ColorForth/msg01325.html