Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!linac!att!cbnewse!cwpjr
From: cwpjr@cbnewse.att.com (clyde.w.jr.phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: One and One doesn't equal two It equals 1 - The Who
Keywords: What does this have to do with merits?
Message-ID: <1991Mar21.203114.7666@cbnewse.att.com>
Date: 21 Mar 91 20:31:14 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 44

Dave asked:
(Dave Lowry @ Honeywell Systems & Research Center)(9 lines) 

With all this discussion of the merits of Forth, I wonder if somebody           could comment on the usefulness of a language that merrily accepts
things like:

: 1 2 ;

resulting in:

1 1 + . 4 ok
------------

The FORTH language is very useful. I suspect that's not what you're
fishin for but I bet the big one you're after get's away! 8^)

It merrily accepts : : do somthing else also ; . I find this a virtue.

I think it is a strength to be this flexible. Cosider fuzzy logic:

If I say : 1 1.004 : I have a waited value that can still be referred to
as "1".

I know of NO OTHER LANGUAGE that lets me SO MERRILY hide my complexity. 

Bill GATES Addressing AT&T 3/6/91 :

Sophisticated Simplicity. Writing complex software that enables people
with a few simple keystrokes, to have more info faster and better than before.

This in short is the vision I have always had.
----------------------------------------------

So I get to do what Bill wants and without being overly complex.
I still  say this is a virtue, where Virtue = Merit

Now the challenge:

Show me a shorter and cleaner way to weight an absolute ( from the user POV )
value. Your choice of language, don't even have to have merit but must
run on some existing computer we can test it on!

See you shortly, Clyde
"...the quicker it opens the sooner it closes" From "Run for the Roses" Garcia