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From: rcv@forth.mlb.semi.harris.com (Rick VanNorman's alter ego)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Files VS Blocks, a compromise
Message-ID: <1990Oct16.131121.618@mlb.semi.harris.com>
Date: 16 Oct 90 13:11:21 GMT
References: <3540@mindlink.UUCP>
Sender: news@mlb.semi.harris.com
Organization: Harris Semiconductor, Melbourne FL
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In <3540@mindlink.UUCP>, a684@mindlink.UUCP (Nick Janow) writes:

> How about if we drop the whole argument and go to a hypertext file 
> system?  :-)
>
> Click on a word, and a window with that word's words pops up.  Click 
> again, and the stack effect pops up.  Another window shows a graph
> of resources used by the word.

I agree, this would be a wonderful toolset for Forth.  However, my goals
for my own personal Forth environment are different -- I want an 
environment and language that will let me develop applications, small 
and large, quickly.  Furthermore, I want to be able to understand, to 
hold in my immediate conscious awareness, the entire system.  I also
want (intend) to do the entire implementation myself, as this leads to 
an un-paralleled understanding of it.  (For me, having no mysteries in
the environment makes programming in the environment easier.) 

BTW, this is almost what Tom Zimmer's FPC v3.53 does -- using a data
base to index the words and their documentation, and allowing the user
to point with a mouse to chase down all the components of a definition.
But for myself, FPC is _too_ complex to understand all of it
and remember all of its interactions at once.  I need (well, maybe I 
simply want) a system that is much simpler than that.

Rick VanNorman
Staff Engineer, Software Development
RTX Marketing
Harris Semiconductor
Melbourne, Florida, USA

All opinions expressed by me, real or otherwise, are my own.