One year ago I published an initial version of STM8EF on GitHub. I was then a near total Forth newbie, and I had no idea where the journey would take me. In just one year STM8EF turned into a very lean but rather complete self-contained Tiny Forth with support for some super cheap Chinese boards with a small but active community!

The latest additions are:

• a Build Framework with include file support, that compiles Forth code into a target binary
• a ucSim based µC simulation with a Forth console
• upcoming STM8EF suppory in e4thcom
• the very beginning of a library
• a decomposable core (linking, and core word includes are optional)

Future work will go in this direction:

• better support for applications that require very high code density (e.g. hybrid STC/ ITC)
• a library with basics like hardware drivers, math, etc (maybe in the form of packages)
• more exchange with the Forth community
• Script-Kits (sic) for typical applications (power supply, lab automation, why not thermostats ;-)

One more thing that happened in just one year: I have to be super careful not to forget how it is not to be a Forther - otherwise the whole thing will be of very little use for the average HaD guy. I guess that there is a need for more spin-off projects that are really easy to build, and simple to understand.