ForthOS Metacompilation
Introduction
Most Forth implementations available today are coded in C; you use
a C compiler to build an executable, and when you run that executable
you interact with the Forth environment which was implemented in C.
If you want to code up a Forth application, you type it into this
environment. If you want to change or extend the Forth implementation,
you code in C.
ForthOS is different; it takes the philosophy that one of the great
strengths of Forth is that it provides continuous stratum
of functionality, with all higher layers able to leverage mechanisms
from the layers below. When the Forth system is coded in C, this
natural synergy is lost at the language boundary. Thus, ForthOS
is implemented from top to bottom in Forth, with the lowest primitives
implemented as Forth "code" words.
Metacompilation
When Forth is coded in Forth, the process of building a new Forth
system is called metacompilation. Like most metacompilers,
ForthOS's has restrictions on what kinds of Forth code are permissable.
Thus, ForthOS's system build is structured in two passes; in the first,
a core set of functionality (inner interpreter, console, and disk
access words) is built, and this generated system is booted. Then
the rest of the system is built by loading normal Forth words into
this system.
Most users of ForthOS will probably never need to monkey with the
metacompiler. Coding for it--and debugging your mistakes--takes
a degree of skill and attention to detail much more demanding than
coding normal Forth words. If you're interested, the system distribution
has some documentation on the metacompilation process.