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A Forth-inspired language for writing websites

6.4 relevance
Score Breakdown
technical depth
7
novelty
8
actionability
5
community
6
strategic
4
personal
7

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Forth-inspired language for websites is a novel programming language experiment relevant to developer experience.

2026-05-23 general Hacker News (100+)
A Forth-inspired language for writing websites
Summary

Forge is a Forth-inspired stack-based language for building websites, created by Beto Dealmeida. A single binary compiles .forge files to HTML, serving server-rendered pages to crawlers while a service worker compiles pages client-side for SPA navigation. Persistence uses an append-only JSONL log, and the language includes built-in words for microformats and interactive elements.

Key Takeaway

Evaluate stack-based DSLs like Forge for projects where extreme simplicity and a single-binary deployment model outweigh conventional framework complexity.

Why it matters

This unconventional architecture—blending server-side and client-side rendering with a minimal, stack-based DSL—offers a fresh perspective for platform engineers exploring simplified toolchains and unified rendering models.

Full Article

A Forth-inspired language for writing websites Beto Dealmeida they/he Musician and software engineer. Former climate scientist. Always a webmaster. https://robida.net/ contact@robida.net Key Biscayne, FL, 33149, USA I don't remember where the idea came from, but I decided that it would be cool if I could write websites using a stack-based language. Something like this: : h1 ( s -- ) "<h1>" emit . "</h1>" emit ; "Hello, World!" h1 So I wrote Forge. I quickly built a library of word definitions that let me easily add microformats to the HTML: