This chapter is intended to provide a gentle introduction to Muq MUF. (MUF is a name retained from tinyMuck's MUF programming language: I believe it originally stood for Multi-User Forth.) You should not need any previous familiarity with programming or MUF to follow this chapter; If you find it lapsing into computer geek jargon without explanation or otherwise becoming needlessly hard to follow, please email cynbe@sl.tcp.com and explain the problem and perhaps suggested improvements. (Thanks!)
If you are an experienced programmer, you may wish to read the MUF For Hackers tutorial instead of this one.
A hammer and handsaw suffice to build anything from a chair to a chateau, but professional carpenters speed and simplify their work by using a bewildering array of more specialized power- and hand-tools. In this chapter, we introduce you to the MUF equivalent of hammer and handsaw: When done, you should have the tools to program just about anything you want, but to learn about the many MUF power tools that can speed and simplify your programming, you'll need to go on to the Intermediate MUF chapter (and beyond).
This chapter is not intended to explain all MUF functions and primitives mentioned in full detail See section `Core Muf' in Muf Reference.
You are encouraged to try out examples given interactively as you read this tutorial, and to otherwise experiment. Play is the natural human way of learning, is much more fun than just reading, and increases recall later. You can't break Muq by playing around trying to learn. Or if you do, we'd be delighted to hear about how you did it!
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