Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!SUN.COM!wmb
From: wmb@SUN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <9001172004.AA20978@jade.berkeley.edu>
Date: 16 Jan 90 19:23:20 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: Forth Interest Group International List <FIGI-L%SCFVM.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu>
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 22

>    Forth has to one of the most antisocial languages around! Why
>    else are their SO MANY different Forth systems, all doing it their
>    own way.

I think it's because there is so much missing from standard Forth.
Where there is a standard, people more of less follow it.  Where things
are missing, people go wild and invent their own.  That's why some
of us are trying desperately to include a number of much-needed extensions
in the ANSI standard.

You might argue that people should get together and try to agree on
common extensions.  Some people do try, but from personal experience
I can tell you that is it difficult, time consuming, and expensive
to do something like that.

C is united in part because there was one central arbiter (AT&T)
of "what is C, what is not".  Now AT&T has sort of relinquished
the "ownership", but the ANSI C effort has taken up the slack.

After FIG, there was never any central Forth authority with any clout.

Mitch