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: <9001180238.AA28716@jade.berkeley.edu> Date: 18 Jan 90 00:24:42 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Forth Interest Group International List Organization: The Internet Lines: 45 > >The trouble with this topic is that everybody in the whole world has > >a different idea about what "looks" good. Everybody is "used" to something > >from exposure to some random assembly language. > > I'm not sure what the fuss is about here. For years, over several > different Forth... ... > a specified base. My preference happens to be "H" for hex, and > the default is decimal, but so what - the character can be any > non-numeric you pick. The fuss is not about how to implement it. The fuss is about choosing exactly one syntax so that source code will be portable between 2 different programmers. > Forths that vector NUMBER make this > especially easy, but I have never had much trouble finding > a way to redefine low level words regardless of the implementation. > One of the nicer features of Forth. On the other hand, the fact that you have felt the need to modify all these systems to change the number input syntax argues that there is something lacking from the "standard" number input syntax. I don't go for the argument that "it's easy for anybody to change the number input, so let each person choose his own syntax". In the first place, a non-portable hack that is easy for an expert Forth programmer may be completely beyond the abilities of many programmers. In the second place, having 1 zillion different number syntaxes makes Forth look stupid to the outside world. The goal is to improve the number input syntax so that everybody won't have to hack on the low level words. The difficulty is in getting agreement on what the syntax should be. Your posting just adds fuel to the fire by proposing yet another different syntax (trailing non-numeric character, as opposed to leading non-numeric character or separate prefix word). See? Everybody has his own pet scheme. I could live with just about any reasonable scheme, but so far there have been as many proposed schemes as there are people, and there don't seem to be any compelling arguments to choose between them. "looks ugly" is pretty subjective. Heavy sigh, Mitch