Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!willett!dwp
From: dwp@willett.UUCP (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: John Wavrik's 30 sided sponge
Message-ID: <1275.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jul 90 14:42:12 GMT
References: <9007040411.AA28059@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
Lines: 45

RAYBRO%UTRC@UTRCGW.UTC.COM ("William R Brohinsky", ay), in <9007040411.AA28059@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, writes:

> However, X3J14 seems to have come up with just such sponges as cures
> for disputes. I, for one, will avoid using X3J14's standard for as
> long as I can maintain a FORTH that is standard with what I've been using,
> which is essentially F83 with machine-specific extensions.
Which is to say that you have no interest in "portability"?  

> and implemented. It all seems so sad: X3J14's goodness ran out for me
> when they killed NOT. All the rest has been just nails in the
> coffin lid.
Except that they didn't.  See Mitch's post for my feelings on this.

> I couldn't care less about the kind of standardization that X3J14 is
> involved in. I don't see the likelyhood of John W's dream of applications
> that can run, portable with ease, on many platforms. Even where C is
> standard, it isn't very.
I'm curious as to *why* you think this.  Do you think that it is
inherently impossible and therefore that Wavrik is deluded (or worse)?
(If so, why?) Or do you think that it is merely an uninteresting thing
for Forth people to do, so that it will never happen do to lack of
effort?  Or???

> Because I use PC's (with Windows 3, at the moment) and amigas (with EXEC/
> INTUITION) and may someday be forced to use and program macs and/or OS/2
> I am already aware that you just can't do much with the machine without
> going beyond the standard. The thing that makes a standard necessary for
> C or FORTRAN or Modula-2, etc. is that they guard you from the implementation,
> and require you to take things as givens: how parameters are passed, how
> to interface machine code to them, how variables, constants, and arrays are
> defined and accessed.
(Aha!  I think I've discovered something here!)  Do you think it is against
the nature of Forth to be insulated against such things?  It seems that a lot
of the discussion about the ANSI effort revolves around what it is that
various people see as the essence of Forth.  We've already gone through the
Forth is not PostScript business (for example).  Do I understand correctly
that what you are saying is that Forth is really a philosophy of "total
transparancy/openness" and that standardizing on particular implementations
is useless/silly/counter-to-the-spirit-of-Forth/??? ??

-Doug

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