Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!caen!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!apple!agate!ucbvax!MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM!wmb From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: Conditional compilation Message-ID: <9102250350.AA26430@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 24 Feb 91 08:01:55 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Mitch Bradley Organization: The Internet Lines: 32 > And I don't relish IFTRUE either. > If a clumsy mechanism of this type must be used (and, sigh, I suppose it > must) at least let there be a contest or something for BETTER NAMES! > > To kick off the contest, I will propose [IF] [ELSE] [THEN]. The conditional compilation proposal that the ANS committee is currently voting on via letter ballot uses the names .IF .ELSE .THEN The advantage of IFTRUE OTHERWISE IFEND is that those names are mentioned in the Forth-83 document (which is why my Forth systems use those names). The disadvantage is that OTHERWISE is a bona fide English word, and its appearance in text enclosed by IFTRUE IFEND could be construed as an operator. .IF .ELSE .THEN are nice names. Personally, I agree that [IF] etc are more obvious, and also "[]" has less of a tendency to "get lost" visually than does "." . However, the "dotted" names are in common use; LMI Forth uses those names, and LMI Forth is a very successful system. Another good set of names would be #IF #ELSE #ENDIF , just like C uses. I don't subscribe to the philosophy that Forth always has to do things differently from C on general priciples, and the C names are certainly widely known in the programming community at large. However, all this is pretty much moot; the concrete proposal says .IF .ELSE .THEN , and I doubt that there will be another opportunity to tune the names before Basis goes to dpANS. That is fine with me; the function is much more important than the names, and I think the proposed names are good enough for all practical purposes. Mitch