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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Vocabularies
Message-ID: <1529.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 16 Aug 90 03:29:28 GMT
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
Lines: 22

Category 18,  Topic 92
Message 17        Tue Aug 14, 1990
W.FEDERICI                   at 20:47 PDT
 
  I am constantly surprised that in all these prefix/postfix debates, no one
seems to point out that Forth's CREATE is really not a prefix operator --
rather, it is a function which parses a name from the current input stream,
where ever that may be.  This is a hairsplitting distinction, and one which
probably wouldn't occur to users of conventional languages whose compiler
isn't a "distributed process", but I believe its neglect is a primary reason
that beginners have problems with  CREATE...DOES> defining words.
 .
  Seen in this light, the arguments for a "postfix" CREATE ( or colon, or
VARIABLE or...) are simply another case of deciding how to factor a function --
do we want to separate the name-parsing  from the definition-creation?   I'm
sure most of us have encountered cases where we need this factoring.  (I'm
still comfortable with the normal Forth syntax for normal circumstances.)
 .
 - Wilson
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