Re: Forth for Mac OS X Leopard (Intel) - what are the options?

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies. To summarize, here are the options that were
suggested:

1. Downgrade to 10.4 (although the options on 10.4 aren't very much
better)
2. Use a Linux or BSD Forth implementation running in a VM under
Leopard
3. Contribute financially to a port of Gforth to Leopard
4. Run the commercial MacForth implementation under Rosetta on Leopard
5. Run the open source PowerMops Forth implementation under Rosetta on
Leopard

My decision is based on a number of factors:

A. I'm not willing to downgrade to 10.4, so that rules out #1.
B. Although Gforth sounds like a nice implementation, I am not
interested in financially supporting an open source Forth project
until I know that I will be interested in using that particular
implementation.
C. I am a Forth noob and want to learn about Forth. Therefore,
although a commercial implementation might provide specific beneficial
performance or features in the long term, I don't want to commit to a
commercial product before I'm able to make an informed decision. Also,
in the past, I've found it beneficial to be able to look at the source
code for a language implementation in order to understand how some
specific functionality is implemented. Therefore, an open source Forth
would probably be a better educational tool. Therefore, I decided
against #4.
D. The open source PowerMops Forth implementation sounds like a non-
standard Forth implementation with a custom IDE and a strong OO
orientation. Again, since I am interested in learning Forth, I want to
use a "standard" Forth while learning and not one that has a
particular end-use or focus.

Since there isn't a "native" Leopard/Intel Forth available yet, I've
decided to run GForth under Linux using the Parallels VM. I already
have Parallels and have installed Ubuntu as a guest OS and used
synaptics to download/install Gforth. I also built the tiny jonesforth
(which appears to be an excellent way to learn the basics of a Forth
implementation):
http://www.annexia.org/forth

Thanks again for all of the suggestions and advice.

--
Bill Clementson