Thinking Forth (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Now in it's Third Edition (2004), this enduring work is the only book to fully explore not just the semantics of the Forth programming language, but also the philosophy and style that is used by its most successful practitioners. Interestingly, this philosophy applies well to programming practice in any language.

From the Publisher

Thinking Forth is a book about the philosophy of problem solving and programming style, applied to the unique programming language Forth. Published first in 1984, it could be among the timeless classics of computer books, such as Fred Brooks' The Mythical Man-Month and Donald Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming.

Many software engineering principles discussed here have been rediscovered in eXtreme Programming, including (re)factoring, modularity, bottom-up and incremental design. Here you'll find all of those and more, such as the value of analysis and design, described in Leo Brodie's down-to-earth, humorous style, with illustrations, code examples, practical real life applications, illustrative cartoons, and interviews with Forth's inventor, Charles H. Moore as well as other Forth thinkers.

If you program in Forth, this is a must-read book. If you don't, the fundamental concepts are universal: Thinking Forth is meant for anyone interested in writing software to solve problems. The concepts go beyond Forth, but the simple beauty of Forth throws those concepts into stark relief.

You'll learn all about the philosophy of Forth, analysis, decomposition, problem solving, style and conventions, factoring, handling data, and minimizing control structures. But be prepared: you may not be able to put it down.

This book has been scanned, OCR'd, typeset in LATEX, and brought back to print (and your monitor) by a collaborative effort under a Creative Commons license.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Punchy Publishing (December 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976458705
• ISBN-13: 978-0976458708
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #181,351 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A core conceptual work on FORTH, May 27, 2000

By	William S. Grigsby (Chillicothe, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Thinking Forth (Paperback)

FORTH isn't for everyone, the use of Reverse Polish Notation, stack operations, and language extensibility can be daunting. But, between Starting Forth as a tutorial and this work providing conceptual insight, there is a path for self study that can bring you along to intermediate level with a reasonable investment of time. Add the FORTH Programmer's Handbook, the ANSI spec and a freeware FORTH package for your flavor of OS (including PalmOS, UNIX, WINDOWS, MSDOS, just about everything has a version) available via the net, and you've got everything you need to explore and learn this powerful, extensible, and compact language.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The ORIGINAL Refactoring Reference, June 29, 2003

By	Herman Jackson (Corpus Christi, Texas United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thinking Forth (Paperback)

As a teacher/programmer I found this to be a phenomenal piece of work. One of the hottest items in programming today is refactoring - it's here. Object orientation, modularity, top-down, bottom-up, it's all here. You can't read this book without becomming a better programmer regardless of the language. But you don't want to just read it. Work through the examples, follow the logic until you understand it - really understand it. You don't use Forth? Doesn't matter. The principles of problem analysis and good program construction are language independent. Try this one - you'll like it. Learning to function in the sparce yet luxuriant Forth universe will change the way you program.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Second Forth Book, April 16, 2000

By	David B Bechtel (Seattle, Wa.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thinking Forth (Paperback)

This is the second book on Forth that should be read by any person interested in learning Forth. After finishing the examples in Brodies first book, read this one to pick up on how a Forth programmer solves different programming problems. You will find that the methods learned are applicable to all languages but especially useful in the iterative style that is Forth.