9 Jan
2014
9 Jan
'14
10:09 a.m.
From: IanK at LivingComputerMuseum.org
---snip---
OK, let's sort this out. Lisp uses prefix notation. What is often called
'algebraic' entry is formally infix notation. And RPN employs postfix notation,
as does Forth. That's one reason I think it must have been interesting to translate a
Lisp program into Forth. :-) -- Ian
The other part is that in LISP, the operation is over a list.
(+ 4 5 6 ) in LISP is not same as 4 5 6 + in Forth.
Still, Forth can easily be expanded to handle somethings
like list processing. It can even make an efficient (+
and do prefixed. I've often created a '[ x x x ],' like operation
when I've needed to compile a long string of data,
like from a PROM dump. Like real LISP, being able to control
all aspects of the interpretation and compilation make for
unlimited ways of dealing with each specific problem.
I'm not sure what level the translation was done at but
I was told it was done, mostly, automatically by a Forth to
LISP predecessor written in Forth.
Dwight