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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What should the Standard include?
Message-ID: <1662.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 3 Sep 90 04:08:23 GMT
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
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Category 10,  Topic 30
Message 89        Fri Aug 31, 1990
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 13:14 EDT
 
From Elizabeth Rather, Chair, ANS X3J14 Technical Committee:

This is addressed to those who have been commenting extensively on our work on
UseNet and related boards.

We very much appreciate your interest.  I have circulated copies of many of
your comments in the TC.  I'd like to take the opportunity to try to clarify a
few things.

I understand that many of you share our goal to have a "perfect" standard. 
Unfortunately, you don't all agree as to the definition of "perfect", and
neither do all members of the TC.  There are at least five widely shared
definitions:

1. A rich standard that includes all common words plus many extensions so that
anything I might want to do is encompassed.  I need to be able to count on all
my favorite words being supported by all Forth systems in order to be able to
write complex, interesting programs portably.  Program size isn't an issue,
since all systems have many megabytes of memory nowadays.

2. A lean, mean standard that specifies a minimum wordset whose availability I
can rely on, but isn't encumbered with so many general-purpose capabilities
that systems are too big to run in a 16- bit address space with room for
useful programs.  I'm happy to assume the responsibility for adding those
extensions I need.

3. FORTH-83, with minor fixups like 32-bit system support.

4. FORTH-79, with minor fixups like 32-bit system support.

5. No standard.  Who are you to tell me what to do?

Only the last group can be easily satisfied, by acknowledging their right to
ignore whatever standard we pass.  Most of our time is spent working out
compromises between the other four viewpoints. These compromises are developed
over hours of work, and like all compromises they can be expected to make
everyone somewhat unhappy. But it's important for you to realize just how hard
we're trying to find solutions that will be as satisfactory as possible to as
many people as possible.
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