⇐ MY QUORA-INDEX
QUORA - my answered Questions
QUORA - my answered Questions
Easy to learn ? I would say Forth (ok> is the REPL sign). This doesn?t mean easy to program. Forth is super tiny (Compiler, Interpreter, Editor and Debugger integrated in some k of memory). Forth is super flexible (this is the reason why it is not easy to program in, you have to know what you are doing). Forth let you access the parameter and return stack explicitly. Like Common Lisp and Smalltalk, compiler is available even at runtime. Like Common Lisp, macros are pretty powerful.
ok> .? Hello World? \ .? is a function (functions are called words in Forth)
-> Hello World
Define new Words (functions) starting with : and ending with ; Colon : and ; are words in Forth, not syntax. forth has no syntax.
ok> : say-hello .? Hello World? ;
ok> say-hello
-> Hello World
?if? is no syntax either. ?if? is a macro which compiles a conditional jump to the ?else? mark, and else is a macro which compiles a jump to the ?then? mark. so even to extend the compiler is really simple and it could be done in the REPL (read eval print loop). you don?t see the arguments in code because arguments are given implicit on data stack. (1 ? push 1 on data stack. if ? take 1 from data stack)
ok> : yes-or-no if .? true? else .? false? then ;
ok> 1 yes-or-no
-> true
ok> 0 yes-or-no
-> false
Easy to learn and to program ? I would say Scheme. Smalltalk, as mentioned by others, does have a too large class hierarchy to start with.