Forth is probably the smallest true high level language there is. It is entirely self-contained, needs just about nothing in terms of hardware support and can run in as little as 2K of memory.
It is well suited to things like real-time control, you'll probably have a hard time getting used to stack manipulation (especially in the beginning) and it tends to keep you up all night (not sure if that is a strength or a weakness ;) ).
It will also be the most fun you've had with a computer in a long time and it will likely make you look at the rest of what we do with computers as clunky in the extreme.
What Forth is not really suitable for is large projects and things built with a team. It is more of an artisanal thing, something closer to watchmaking or jewelery than major construction.
If you want to know more about why Forth is the way it is you could do worse than to start with studying the life of Chuck Moore for a bit, the language and its author are roughly equally interesting and for want of a better word peculiar.
I remember writing a fairly trivial program in Forth on a ZX81 for a school open day. You needed the 16K RAM pack thing with the usual lump of Blu Tac to stop it wobbling.
When I "discovered" Forth, it seemed like science fiction (soo fast!) to me after BASIC juddering around the screen.
Probably worth mentioning the Jupiter Ace here[0] - a ZX81/Spectrum era computer which had Forth in ROM, instead of BASIC which was common at the time. The basic model only had 1K of RAM. I never used one but I remember when it came out, reviewers commented on its speed and memory efficiency.
"It will also be the most fun you've had with a computer in a long time and it will likely make you look at the rest of what we do with computers as clunky in the extreme."
Double true if one looks at the hardware and software Chuck Moore makes with it.
http://www.greenarraychips.com/ is his current company, mostly notable for extremely low-power chips using asynchronous circuits (i.e. there's no central clock). IIRC he develops the CAD software he uses to design chips on his own chips.
Read Chuck talk about OKad...when the hardware wasn't to his liking he built his own chips...after writing his own CAD software in only like 5k loc that runs waay faster than traditional CAD software and uses almost no resources.
It is well suited to things like real-time control, you'll probably have a hard time getting used to stack manipulation (especially in the beginning) and it tends to keep you up all night (not sure if that is a strength or a weakness ;) ).
It will also be the most fun you've had with a computer in a long time and it will likely make you look at the rest of what we do with computers as clunky in the extreme.
What Forth is not really suitable for is large projects and things built with a team. It is more of an artisanal thing, something closer to watchmaking or jewelery than major construction.
If you want to know more about why Forth is the way it is you could do worse than to start with studying the life of Chuck Moore for a bit, the language and its author are roughly equally interesting and for want of a better word peculiar.
One thing Forth is not: wasteful.