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From: wmb@ENG.SUN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Conditionals
Message-ID: <9103301541.AA22685@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 30 Mar 91 02:40:06 GMT
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Reply-To: wmb%ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 30

> > custom. This usage of '#' (#IF) doesn't conflict with its traditional one.

> It doesn't conflict with the use of '#' in pictured numeric output?  I
> have to disagree with you here.

It is incorrect to say that pictured numeric output is *the* traditional
use of '#'.  That is just one of the traditional uses.  Another is in
the word #TIB .

The point is that the character '#' has much less traditional "meaning"
in and of itself than '.'

When most Forth programmers see '.' at the beginning of a work, they
think "aha, a printing word".  '#' elicts much less of a response.

> Moreover, I sometimes use my C pre-processor on my Forth code, and this
> would conflict with THAT!

True, but I bet that you represent a very small minority in this respect.
I have been using Forth under Unix for many years, and I don't recall ever
having done this.


In any case, it appears to me that ForthNet seems to have developed a
loose consensus favoring the [IF] names, and the reaction to the question
of whether or not to have the conditional compilation words at all seems
to be leaing toward having them.  I shall present this information to the
ANS committee at the next meeting.

Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM