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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What are the existing standards?
Message-ID: <1854.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 15 Oct 90 03:06:34 GMT
Organization: String, Scotch tape, and Paperclips.  (in Pgh, PA)
Lines: 93

Category 10,  Topic 1
Message 19        Sun Oct 14, 1990
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 17:11 EDT
 
Wow, a wealth of response.  I'll reply to Dennis, and trust that this reply
will cover the issues everyone else raised.

I'll grant that other people's -- and consequently the TC's -- priorities are
different from mine.  But I think it's important to review them periodically,
both to see how valid they are, and to see how closely the TC is sticking to
them.

Most notably: I'm starting to see the ANSI effort as divided into two camps,
not on the "fat" vs. "thin" issue, but on the issue of the purpose of having
an ANSI standard.  Group A wants the standard to reflect what Forth _is_,
while Group B wants the standard to reflect what Forth _ought_to_be_.  The
former wants an ANSI Forth in order to standardize the language; the latter
wants it in order to market the language.

I think we need a clear statement of position here, if not from the ANSI team,
at least from its members.  I trust that it has become obvious that I'm in
Group A, and I'm afraid that Group B is beginning to dominate.

> When you have books in print that describe specific implementations
 > and those implementations conflict, how can you fix them?

The point I was making is that even when all previous implementations
_agreed_, the ANSI team has changed things.

Further comments on ENVIRONMENT? I will submit to the TC.

On CATCH/THROW:
 > Mitch Bradleys I know has something very similar, and I seem to
 > remember that Don Colburn said it used a very similar technique.

Thank you, you've made my point.  People have done _similar_ things.
 (The same is true of local variables.)  But the implementation proposed by
the ANSI TC has, to my knowledge, been used only by Mitch Bradley.

There are two reasons why it's necessary to have a long field trial before
adopting a new idea into the standard.  The first reason -- the reason
everyone focuses on -- is to determine if the idea is implementable.  The
second, neglected, but equally important, reason is to determine if the idea
is _useful_.  By this I mean widely applicable, useful to a broad spectrum of
Forth programmers in a variety of applications.

Even minor variations in the implementation details can radically affect the
usefulness of a construct.  (Consider +1 vs. -1 for "true," or the 79- vs. 83-
Standard LEAVE.)  Only time can establish usefulness, and this is why I say
it's too soon to adopt CATCH and THROW into an American National Standard.

BTW, I've done something similar myself.  (Check out sigForth Vol.1 No.2.) 
Interestingly enough, my system handled a problem that CATCH and THROW cannot.
But this problem may have been specific to my application, so my system may
not be the best thing to standardize upon.  (Please note that I haven't
submitted it to the TC.)

> Do you have a better suggestion?

Sure.  Postpone it until a future edition of the standard.  In the meantime,
get the Forth community to try it -- and other systems; at least three more
have been invented -- out.  (Remember the great CASE contest?)

> I suggest that you study them all and see if you can come up with
 > better compromises than what the people who are responsible for
 > implementing those systems can do.

Sorry, I neglected to mention that I implemented two of those myself.  I'm
implementing three more right now.  Patronizing comments avail you naught.

> You can either choose to help the process by submitting positive
 > comments and suggestions...or you can hinder the effort by
 > degrading their efforts or dwelling on their past judgments.

Allow me to point out that I began sending positive suggestions to the TC
_long_ before I began carping in this semi-public forum. (Some of them,
incredibly, were accepted.)  I am _still_ sending formal proposals to the TC,
and IMHO I have been instrumental in getting some of the other dissatisfied
Southern Ontario Forthers to do likewise.

BUT...the TC's debates are rarely published -- only their decisions, in a
cryptic set of minutes in which the proposals are identified only by title
(not by author).  I as a "submittor" am not informed of when my proposal is
going to be decided, or even what number it has been assigned.  Like many
interested parties, I can rarely afford to attend one ANSI meeting, let alone
all of them.  So, by definition, the only way we can discuss the TC's
decisions is after the fact, in forums such as this.  If this is a
"hindrance", well, public debate always is.

- Brad
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