Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM!wmb
From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re:  ANS TC Magnet for Division
Message-ID: <9005301341.AA19033@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 29 May 90 18:47:41 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: Mitch Bradley <wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV>
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 30

RD:> I am amazed that the committee would do something so bizarre as
RD:> requiring all positive arguments for / /MOD and MOD.  This is not an
RD:> acceptable solution as far as LMI is concerned.

The committee does not require all positive arguments for / /MOD MOD .

The spec means:
        a) If a program uses only positive arguments, then it will work
           the same on any system.

        b) If a program uses negative arguments, then the results may vary
           across systems.

This is a statement of historical fact; currently there are commercially
successful systems on both sides of the division fence.  Some important
vendors refused to adopt Forth-83.

This is the best that could be done, considering that there were people on
BOTH (floored and symmetric) sides of the issue who WOULD NOT GIVE IN.

Another angle on this is that ANS Forth does not compel vendor A to
break his customers' code in order to satisfy vendor B, and vice versa.

UM/MOD , FM/MOD , and SM/MOD primitives are provided to allow an
application to explicitly construct any needed division semantics.

The technical problem has been completely solved, in the best possible way
given the extant political constraints.  Like it or not, politics is real.

Mitch