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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Conditionals !
Message-ID: <2484.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 11 Mar 91 00:03:44 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 57


 Date: 03-07-91 (14:01)              Number: 1445 of 1453
   To: RAY DUNCAN                    Refer#: NONE
 From: CHRIS WATERS                    Read: NO
 Subj: Conditionals !                Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
 Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)

 RD>issue one way or the other.   I do fail to see how #IF is any
 RD>more "Forth-like" than ".IF" since the only use I know of for #
 RD>in Forth is to convert binary to ASCII.

 I think Mitch was saying that #IF is no WORSE than .IF, and shouldn't be
 rejected just because it's 'C-like'.  I'd have to agree with him about
 that.  Neither .IF nor #IF strike ME as particularly 'Forth-like'. :)

 Personally, I think my suggested [IF] is the only suggestion I've heard
 that is at all Forthlike.  It has one drawback that I can think of--the
 braces usually indicate a immediate word that should be used inside a
 colon definition, whereas [IF] (or .IF or #IF) is probably used outside
 of colon definitions more often than not.  But it IS an immediate word,
 and CAN be used inside colon defs, and I do think it's a better choice
 of name than either of the other two.

 Another possibility is (IF), by analogy with paren and dot-paren, the
 only words I can think of which act the same inside or outside of a
 definition.  But this would conflict with paren, the same objection that
 was raised to query-paren.

 I'd much prefer to see a syntax that is consistent with other Forth
 words, rather than one borrowed from another language without
 consideration for what the name implies in Forth.  Both .IF and #IF
 imply (to me at least) a word that has something to do with output.
 I could live with either if accepted into the standard, but from my
 point-of-view, this would be a flaw in the standard.

 I'm not inseparably attached to [IF].  It was something I came up with
 off the top of my head, a week or two ago, and I confess I've never used
 it in any code (I'm a query-paren man, myself; been using qp since about
 '79) but I do think it's a good suggestion, and would not mind seeing it
 given equal consideration.

 Chris   R:-{O}

 p.s. I used LMI-Forth at my last job about four years ago (an excellent
 product, BTW), but I don't remember .IF.  Is this a new addition to LMI?
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