Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!willett!ForthNet
From: ForthNet@willett.UUCP (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Experimental Ideas
Message-ID: <1433.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jul 90 02:29:07 GMT
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
Lines: 55

Category 3,  Topic 5
Message 36        Mon Jul 30, 1990
F.SERGEANT [Frank]           at 00:48 CDT
 
 THANKS to Bob Berkey, Dennis Ruffer, & Gene Lefave for your recent  comments
regarding polyFORTH and what's right about it and what makes a  "perfect"
Forth.  Please, everyone, keep the comments coming.


 > And round-robin scheduling is a key.
   Robert, I assume you mean that the task accessing the block doesn't  issue
a PAUSE until it is safe to do so.  I like (& have always liked)  the round-
robin, co-operative multi-tasking approach, although I  haven't done much with
it.  Once in F83 I set up a buffered  serial-input as a separate task.  It
worked very nicely.  I've thought  one of CM's ideas on multi-tasking was that
instead of having a single  task requiring complicated co-ordination, you have
a number of simple  tasks, each of which can be tested alone.  So, in (this)
theory,  multi-tasking should make the debugging easier, but it sounds like
you  have experience to the contrary.

 > Line editors.  
   No, no - I'm not condemning them outright - just saying I have my  doubts
and questions.  As I said, I've had some good experiences with  line editors. 
You can get real clever figuring out just how much to  specify in a find
command so you get where you want to with a minimum  of typing.  On the other
hand, sitting on an arrow key until the cursor  is on the correct line can't
fairly be compared (I think) on a  character-by-character-transmitted-to-the-
computer basis with typing  out a multi-character find command.  I didn't
understand what you meant  about a mouse.  Did you mean it was an efficiency
compromise to use one  or not to use one?  I don't use one.  I recently bought
a cheap one and  haven't been able to make myself connect it up.  I have
generally been  against them (but without having used one).  And, yet, they
are similar  (especially if they have 3 buttons on them) to the idea of a 3-
key  keyboard, which still intrigues me.  I think a mouse requires an 
unnatural environment:  just as vacuum is unnatural, an empty place on  a desk
is unnatural.  I don't have one and never seem to have had one  for more than
a few minutes at a time.  So, so far, I prefer a  keyboard. Yes, the L&P line
editor I disliked.  I had assumed it was  modeled on polyFORTH.

 > Threaded vocabularies.
   I see how they work in pF more clearly now.  You have 8 (what I  would
call) fixed vocabularies.  Then your word VOCABULARY creates a  specialized &
named search order for those (what you call) threads.   I understand better a
comment Wil made in a figgy bar.

 > Allen Test Product's big thing-a-ma-jig
   I don't mean I'm going to build one right away!  That was part of my 
point, that the troubleshooting info, specs, etc was probably something  I
would never want to gather on my own.

     Any more thoughts?  Anyone else?
 -- Frank
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