Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tekchips!tekgvs!toma
From: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Blocks vs Text files
Message-ID: <8271@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Date: 15 Oct 90 15:19:03 GMT
References: <1860.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Reply-To: toma@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 23

In article <1860.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us> ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie) writes:

>     Maybe source code should be managed in a system that looks something 
>like an outline processor, where we can easily shift levels and hide or 
>expose details.  This might be called a hierarchical, variable sized block 
>system.

An interesting point. There was this CP/M program called KAMAS which was an
outline processor with an interesting feature: it was also a Forth-like
(really STOIC-like) programming language. You could load KAMAS code from
the outline structure. You specified a node in the outline tree, and it
would do a depth-first traversal loading code. 

While nicer than flat files, it still wasn't good enough because programs
aren't really tree structured -- they are really more like directed nets
(witness that the word "@" is likely to be used in most low level nodes).

Tom Almy
toma@tekgvs.labs.tek.com
Standard Disclaimers Apply

P.S. I found KAMAS so appealing that it was the last application I continued
to use before giving up on the CP/M environment. An incredible program.