[larsbrinkhoff]

I emailed this to Lee. I guess it can go here too.

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I have been fortunate to have worked professionally with Forth recently. It was so fun! But I still struggle to point out exactly why I like Forth, and why and how it's different. Your essay is fresh take, which is good.

To me, maybe the most important lessons are.

1. Eschew complexity (sometimes to a fault), and 2. Improve the code by redefining the problem. Look at things from another angle. (I hate to say it, but think out of the box.)

Much of Forth falls out from these principles. E.g. people are quick to point out Forth is a stack based programming language. Which is true enough, but to me it's kind of beside the point. The point is the language does away with local variables (redefine the problem) to lay the ground for a much simpler implementation (eschew complexity).

Yes, there's REPL. But why? Because Forth is (or can be) a programming language, operating system, compiler, and command line rolled into one. Heaps of layers and components done away with.

File system, virtual system, code structure, documentation? Blocks!

The list goes on. Once you internalize this, the veil falls from your eyes, and you see how much needless complexity stands in your way in most other languages, operating system, tools, apps, ... it's everywhere.