> walking into a new Forth application is potentially like walking into a new language
This is how walking into an application in any language (but yes especially Forth and Lisp(s)) is supposed to be but most are doing it wrong by repeating a lot of boilerplate.
If you have a boilerplate in your Forth, you are doing it wrong, it seems.
> Forth is not the language. Forth the language captures nothing, it's a moving target. Chuck Moore constantly tweaks the language and largely dismisses the ANS standard as rooted in the past and bloated. Forth is the approach to engineering aiming to produce as small, simple and optimal system as possible, by shaving off as many requirements of every imaginable kind as you can.
> That's why its metaprogramming is so amazingly compact. It's similar to Lisp's metaprogramming in much the same way bacterial genetic code is similar to that of humans – both reproduce. Humans also do many other things that bacteria can't (…No compatibility. No files. No operating system). And have a ton of useless junk in their DNA, their bodies and their habitat.
> Bacteria have no junk in their DNA. Junk slows down the copying of the DNA which creates a reproduction bottleneck so junk mutations can't compete. If it can be eliminated, it should. Bacteria are small, simple, optimal systems, with as many requirements shaved off as possible.
This is how walking into an application in any language (but yes especially Forth and Lisp(s)) is supposed to be but most are doing it wrong by repeating a lot of boilerplate.