Assembly vs. Forth vs. Java vs. Scheme Comparison Chart

Forth, the computer language was created for programming embedded and real-time applications. Today, it is available for developing applications on Windows, DOS, and variants of Unix that include macOS. Additionally, commercial-grade Forth cross-compilers generate highly optimized code that runs on a variety of microprocessors and microcontrollers and proves themselves very capable in custom-hardware environments. Forth is a high-level programming language, although most versions include an assembler. Fourth-system providers often include software tools to help application code make good use of system resources. Forth is interactive. It is conducive to developing modular, well-tested code in shorter development times. It can also result in very concise code. Some programmers are not accustomed to languages with such brevity, directness, and (apparent) simplicity. Forth has a reputation for rapid development, lean code, and superb performance.

Scheme is a general-purpose computer programming language. It is a high-level language, supporting operations on structured data such as strings, lists, and vectors, as well as operations on more traditional data such as numbers and characters. While Scheme is often identified with symbolic applications, its rich set of data types and flexible control structures make it a truly versatile language. Scheme has been employed to write text editors, optimize compilers, operating systems, graphics packages, expert systems, numerical applications, financial analysis packages, virtual reality systems, and practically every other type of application imaginable. Scheme is a fairly simple language to learn since it is based on a handful of syntactic forms and semantic concepts and since the interactive nature of most implementations encourages experimentation. Scheme is a challenging language to understand fully.