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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: X3J14 Goals
Message-ID: <2288.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 27 Jan 91 22:36:22 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 62

Category 10,  Topic 39
Message 27        Sun Jan 27, 1991
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 15:00 EST
 
from Mitch Bradley:
 > ...you don't throw useful things away unless you have or can afford
 > a replacement.

You've got that backwards, Mitch: I'm talking about throwing the _replacement_
away.

And besides, I don't object to most of the BASIS.  I've cheerfully accepted
things which I never use, but which I'm convinced are common practice -- and I
let others argue those issues.  And you and John Hayes have changed my mind on
a few issues, by thorough and patient reasoning (which earns the two of you my
highest respect).

No, I just want to "throw away" certain parts of the BASIS -- and even those I
only want to postpone until an adequate evaluation has taken place.

Let's scrap the blemishes in an otherwise reasonably-good thing.

from David Petty:
 > I agree that it is difficult (impossible?) to come up with such a
 > ``list of criteria.''  I have never been able to come up with one
 > that I feel is absolutely correct.

I think we have confusion here between "necessary" and "sufficient" criteria. 
I agree with you in that I could not come up with a set of "sufficient"
criteria that exactly delineated which proposals got into the standard.  But I
maintain that it IS possible to come up with a set of "necessary" conditions,
i.e., minimum requirements which all proposals must meet.  As I have noted
elsewhere, the TC rejects even this.

The one and only criterion recognized by the TC is "do I like it", applied
iteratively across the members who are present.

From Nick Janow:
 > ...you can tell me if it's a bad analogy.

Tell me, which came first: high-performance alloys, or the standards to
describe them?

From Daniel Sorbal:
 > You cannot say that a feature is not standard because it isn't used
 > by most part of the Forth community.

Are you kidding?  What does "standard" mean to you?

And, finally, from Jack Woehr:
 > Like democracy, it pleases no one and satisfies, in the long run,
 > everyone.

"Democracy is simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people,
 for the people."  - Oscar Wilde.

- Brad
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