Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!pitt!willett!ForthNet
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: for us beginners?  Help
Message-ID: <2230.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 13 Jan 91 04:15:02 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 46


 Date: 01-09-91 (06:15)              Number: 824 of 834
   To: ROGER LEE                     Refer#: 807
 From: CHRIS WATERS                    Read: NO
 Subj: The Stupid Question           Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 RL.Forth, as I understand it, is highly extensible. Extensible to
 RL.the point that you can basically re-write the language every time
 RL.you use it. Bearing this in mind, how can ANSI set a standard on

 Ok, I'm responsible for introducing you to Forth, I guess I should try
 to field this one.  All of the Forth standards (FORTH-79, FORTH-83,
 and ANSI draft) specify wordsets that must be present for a Forth
 system to be compliant.  Your application is free to redefine words in
 these wordsets, but then it will not be a compliant application.

 If others here will forgive me for making an analogy based on another
 recently ANSI-standardized language, it's like the ANSI-standard for C
 library routines.  An application is free to define its own version of
 the library routines, but all the standard routines must be present
 for a compiler to be labeled compliant.

 If you think of Forth as a language without keywords, it may make this
 easier to understand.  Every word in the Forth dictionary is, in
 essence, like a C library function.  You can redefine them, but you
 are then stepping outside the boundaries of the standard.  If you
 redefine the standard word '+' to concatenate two strings, your
 application could not be labeled standard (under any Forth standard).
 Unless your redefinition of '+' was in a separate STRINGS vocabulary.

 BTW, how far have you gotten in that copy of Starting Forth I loaned
 you?
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