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From: jax@well.sf.ca.us (Jack J. Woehr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: What If Nobody Cared?
Message-ID: <18754@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: 27 Jun 90 03:56:40 GMT
References: <1216.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Lines: 34


>wil baden, linguist, author, and creator of F83X/S for the Apple
>and the PC, writes:

>What if they made a standard and nobody cared?

	Wil, that's a pretty good description of the Forth community in
general in regards the process. But there are several hundred very active
participants that do care.

>The purpose of a standards committee is to standardize, not invent.   Creative
>impulses should only be used to resolve existing conflicts.  Only  something
>that already exists can be standardized. 

	That seems to make sense, but then again, so does representative
democracy, at least on paper ... :-)

>Forth doesn't have to become a new and different language every time Forth 
>programmers get together.

	The available empirical evidence does not support your contention,
I fear.


>If ANS Forth is a new language, should anyone bother with it?

	Yes, if it convinces the boneheads who make up the other 97%
of computer science that Forth is now a *real* language with this
ANSI seal of Good Housekeeping. Haven't you ever heard of marketing? :-)

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