sectorlisp VS foth

I'm assuming you are referring to https://github.com/jart/sectorlisp which I gather is an attempt to make a Lisp that fits in a disk boot sector?

I think SIMD was a distraction to our conversation, most code doesn't use it and in the future the length agnostic, flexible vectors; https://github.com/WebAssembly/flexible-vectors/blob/master/... are a better solution. They are a lot like RVV; https://github.com/riscv/riscv-v-spec, research around vector processing is why RISC-V exists in the first place!

I was trying to find the smallest Rust Wasm interpreters I could find, I should have read the source first, I only really use wasmtime, but this one looks very interesting, zero deps, zero unsafe.

16.5kloc of Rust https://github.com/rhysd/wain

The most complete wasm env for small devices is wasm3

20kloc of C https://github.com/wasm3/wasm3

I get what you are saying as to be so small that there isn't a place of bugs to hide.

> “There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.” CAR Hoare

Even a 100 line program can't be guaranteed to be free of bugs. These programs need embedded tests to ensure that the layer below them is functioning as intended. They cannot and should not run open loop. Speaking of 300+ reimplementations, I am sure that RISC-V has already exceeded that. The smallest readable implementation is like 200 lines of code; https://github.com/BrunoLevy/learn-fpga/blob/master/FemtoRV/...

I don't think Wasm suffers from the base extension issue you bring up. It will get larger, but 1.0 has the right algebraic properties to be useful forever. Wasm does require an environment, for archival purposes that environment should be written in Wasm, with api for instantiating more envs passed into the first env. There are two solutions to the Wasm generating and calling Wasm problem. First would be a trampoline, where one returns Wasm from the first Wasm program which is then re-instantiated by the outer env. The other would be to pass in the api to create new Wasm envs over existing memory buffers.

See, https://copy.sh/v86/

MS-DOS, NES or C64 are useful for archival purposes because they are dead, frozen in time along with a large corpus of software. But there is a ton of complexity in implementing those systems with enough fidelity to run software.

Lua, Typed Assembly; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typed_assembly_language and Sector Lisp; https://github.com/jart/sectorlisp seem to have the right minimalism and compactness for archival purposes. Maybe it is sectorlisp+rv32+wasm.

If there are directions you would like Wasm to go, I really recommend attending the Wasm CG meetings.

https://github.com/WebAssembly/meetings

When it comes to an archival system, I'd like it to be able to run anything from an era, not just specially crafted binaries. I think Wasm meets that goal.

https://gist.github.com/dabeaz/7d8838b54dba5006c58a40fc28da9...

Based on this, the next thing you wrote, and your reference to running a minimal Gentoo: I think you might be a Scheme fan in the making. Scheme is the minimal Lisp. (Okay, that might be sectorlisp which fits in 512 bytes.) It’s hands down my favorite language. While it’s evolved on its own to be more of a superset of Scheme, Racket is my Scheme of choice.

sectorlisp

I hacked up a simple forth-like system in golang, by following the overview posted in this hackernews comment-chain:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13082825

The result is here:

https://github.com/skx/foth

It's not real, but it was a pretty fun experiment regardless.

Here's one of the many forks that brings it up to 64-bit:

https://github.com/matematikaadit/jombloforth

If you like forth there's an awesome series of comments here on hacker news on building a simple variant in a few simple steps:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13082825

I took that, and built a simple forth-like system, in golang following the original recipe and breaking it down into simple steps for learning-purposes:

https://github.com/skx/foth

I'll always vote up submissions referencing anything FORTH related. For me FORTH is as much fun as lisp appears to be for others. I've never really done much with it, but I always like the simplicity and the ability to reason about it.

Sure FORTH has problems of its own, but it's always nice to use. I've hacked up a couple of simple FORTH-like systems over the years, most recently this one which was inspired by a thread on this site:

https://github.com/skx/foth

A lot of people go through guides of writing a lisp, I'd love to urge people to try writing a simple FORTH interpreter instead, or even something somewhat related such as TCL.

There's even a recipe posted in a couple of comments here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13082825

I followed that guide to implement a simple FORTH-like system in golang:

https://github.com/skx/foth

As I was following the implementation recipe I broke it down into "educational steps". Although it isn't a true FORTH it is pretty easy to understand and useful enough to embed inside other applications.

Now and again I consider doing it again, but using a real return-stack to remove the hardcoded control-flow words from the interpreter, but I never quite find the time.

I actually hacked up a simple forth-like system, after reading a brief howto here on hackernews:

https://github.com/skx/foth/

Here's the thread which has the barebones overview which inspired me:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13082825

I could have taken it further, but the implementation there is not "real" in the sense that there is no real return-stack, so you can't implement IF-statements using the lower-level primitives.

That said it is a good starting point, and I had some fun doing it. I'd guesstimate it is more of a single weekend project though, rather than longer.