Last updated: 17 May 2012


Using FLAG

If you just want to download code, browse the libraries and download the code.

If you want to put your library on FLAG, this page is for you.

Advantages

FLAG is an open repository for Forth libraries as source code. Putting your code on FLAG provides wider visibility of your code. It may even bring you some business.

What makes FLAG different is that we have made some effort to enable you to make web pages that are consistent with the other FLAG pages. All the templates and scripts are free (beer).

Procedure

We really do not want to get in the way of your development process. That's completely up to you. What we do want to do is to promote the reuse of Forth source code. The stages are as follows:

  • Contact FLAG to get a project directory set up. We need your real name and contact address, an email address, and a quick description of the library.
  • We will send you access details for putting code and pages in your directory by FTP. Once you put code and pages up, you indemnify us from being sued for any reason - the legal risks are all yours.
  • Provide us with a short description of the library, basically what it does and which systems it has been ported to. We will add this description to the list of libraries.
  • Write an index page index.html for your project. The project list pages in FLAN will link to this page only. You must provide a contact email address in this page. If you want to use the standard FLAG templates, please do so. Download the file templates.zip.
  • The project language is English.
  • Dates must be in an unambiguous format. The recommended format is dd Mon yyyy, e.g. 16 April 2012. This site is used by people in many countries on several continents.

You can use your project directory as you wish. If your stable release code is already on a server, you are free to link to it there. A project can consist of just a project page whose links are all external.

Because we want to encourage the use of Forth, we do expect you to take some care with the presentation of the pages. It may be unfair, but in reality people will assume that if your web pages are not cared for, neither is your code. We also want you to provide well-written web pages as well as well-written Forth code - it affects the page rankings for FLAG. Every so often the FLAG web site will be validated. Please do not be offended if a FLAG administrator makes minor changes to your pages to improve validation. There are free tools to validate pages. For Windows users, the commercial tool of choice is usually CSE HTML Validator.

Because you have provided an email address, anyone may critique your code and documentation. Treat that as encouragement - it means that people are interested. If you hear nothing from people, your code either just works or has been ignored. Encourage people to comment.

Writing Forth for Portability

Guidelines for writing portable Forth can be found here.