Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a684
From: a684@mindlink.UUCP (Nick Janow)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Off BASIS
Message-ID: <2965@mindlink.UUCP>
Date: 27 Aug 90 18:10:07 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 31


JAJZ801@CALSTATE.BITNET (Jeff Sicherman,CSU Long Beach) writes:

>   Given the issues raised over the result, I have to assume that the standard
> will be the object of much protest and discussion after it is published for
> comment by ANSI.

Of course.  Any compromise virtualy guarantees that someone will be unhappy.
However, the other side of that is that most parties will at least grudgingly
accept the compromise position.

> If the issues are not resolvable, I fear it will never really be accepted
> (implemented) even though it may be adopted.

The feeling I got from the members of the committee is that they were going to
implement/use ANS FORTH when it is finished.  I just write programs for myself,
but I'm going to follow the ANS standard as much as possible.  I don't think
the changeover will be all that difficult.

> And I don't know how they can be resolved given the failures and weaknesses
> of the process that has lead to it. I don't doubt that the standardization of
> other languages were exercises in politics also, but it seems from this
> distance to have dominated the Forth one.

The failures and weaknesses come from the fractured practices of the FORTH
community; the ANS committee is trying to bring the community back together.
Politics does play a part of the process; compromises were required to keep the
support of some major parts of the FORTH community.  The ANS standard is meant
to improve the FORTH community's viablility as a whole by having a large
community working together.  Splitting it up over the meaning of / would not
help the language.