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From: boris@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu (Me)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: postfix (was Re: DOER..MAKE)
Message-ID: <8851@ur-cc.UUCP>
Date: 8 Aug 90 19:03:45 GMT
References: <9008081745.AA29723@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
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Reply-To: boris@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu
Organization: University of Rochester, New York
Lines: 25
Summary:

In article <9008081745.AA29723@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Mitch Bradley <wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV> writes:

>exists in the language and is essentially unavoidable.  Some language
>theoretician once proved that a language needs at least 1 "look-ahead"
>construct.

I'm curious why.  Can you give an intuitive version of the proof, or
failing that a reference?

>The Right Way is to have exactly one method for creating a colon
>definition and a general purpose postfix method for giving something
>a name.  e.g.
>
>{ HERE . }  " FOO"  DEF   instead of   : FOO  HERE  .  ;
>VAR         " V1"   DEF   instead of   VARIABLE V
>5 CONSTANT  " C1"   DEF   instead of   5 CONSTANT C1

I've always liked this idea.  Is there a language (other than
PostScript and HP-28s calculatorese) that does things this way?

Bng
Boris Goldowsky                        The only way you'll end up in a corner
                                        Is by walking in too straight of a li
boris@prodigal.psych.rochester.edu        --Claudia Schmidt                 n
boris%prodigal@uordbv.BITNET                                                e