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From: dwp@willett.pgh.pa.us (Doug Philips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Interpret/compile consistency
Message-ID: <1786.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 22 Sep 90 04:35:39 GMT
References: <9009220119.AA14290@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
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In <9009220119.AA14290@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM writes:

> Sure, why not?  I did not claim to be the first person to have invented
> such a scheme (in fact I cited several examples of "prior art").  I was
> simply reminding implementors who may not have thought of it (and there
> are many of them) that it is very easy and inexpensive to do (and I showed
> them how), so why aren't they doing it?

I think you ask a very good question.  From what I have heard, the stock
answer is "Forth programmers are too independant" to use someone elses
code/ideas.  Or "Forth means do it your way."  Or "Do it the way that
best suits the problem at hand" which is really just "A general purpose
solution is anathema to Forth."  I think those are nice anecdotal
replies, but I'm not convinced they are the real explanation.  There
are those who claim that Forth is more philosophy than programming
particulars, and they probably aren't even interested in the question.

Personally, I think it is because there is no longer (if there really
ever was, and I don't want to get into that debate here) a standard
Forth which allows code sharing.  I hope the ANS Forth, when it becomes
widely available, will change that.

> Papers do not have to be earth-shattering.  If they did, the Forth
> literature would be pretty sparse.

As it is its fairly dense, esp. for such a so-called niche language.
I gave my personal belief as to why ideas which have been written about
again and again haven't caught on.  I think input from those that have
been in the trenches would be better.

-Doug
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