Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!linac,att!ucbvax!MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM!wmb From: wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: General Purpose Forth Message-ID: <9103191525.AA05154@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 19 Mar 91 03:37:10 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Mitch Bradley Organization: The Internet Lines: 29 > Forth HAS, OOP, structures, bitfields, enums, macros, etc. No, *Forth* does not have these things. *Some Forth implementations* have these things. It is not the same thing at all. Even though there are C-like languages with OOP, C does not have OOP. If many or most Forth implementations had the same set of OOP extensions, then Forth could be said to have OOP, etc. > Some of these packages will/have standardized over time. I doubt it. structures, bitfields, enums and macros are *ancient* technology, and they haven't been standardized yet. What will happen to make the standard? The only reason that ANS Forth has dynamic memory allocation (ALLOCATE and FREE) is because I fought like hell to get it in, and I convinced the committee that it cannot be portably defined on top of an otherwise standard system. > Most are trivial to write in the first place. What is trivial to some is mystical magic for others. Even if everybody could figure how to do a particular thing, nobody would do it the same way. That makes it hard to read and maintain other people's code. Furthermore, most people are jealous of their time, and would rather not re-invent 100 "trivial" wheels every time they have to write a program. Mitch