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From: REEVES@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (Terry Reeves)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: What should the Standard include?
Message-ID: <91120.170210REEVES@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 1 May 91 01:02:10 GMT
References: <2669.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Lines: 28


In article <2669.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>, Brad Rodriguez writes
>
>These are, In My Humble Opinion, very "light" criteria.  (The Boston group
>proposed a five-year period.)  The intent is a) to ensure that new ideas can
>be implemented in all Forth environments (e.g., subroutine-threaded), and b)
>that new ideas be tried out before being adopted.  And yet there are entire
>sections of X3J14 which can't even meet this feeble test!
>

In my nowhere near humble opinion (I'm a high energy physicist. My ego is as
huge as the distances I probe are small.), the criteria proposed are not
light. In fact, I would see them as very stifling. My first quick reading of
the proposal seems to say that only those words which are already standard
across a major portion of the Forth community can be standardized. This would
not only require that all of the necessary systems implement the same ideas,
but that they implement them in almost exactly the same way. Since I am most
definitely not a minimalist, and I want the standard to address as many issues
as possible, I would reject the proposal almost out of hand.

                                                  Terry

P.S. I would also note that it might prevent some of the useful compromises
     that have taken place, i.e. WORDLIST and floored vs. symmetric division.

Disclaimer: The above are my own opinions. The are not necessarily related to
the official policies of SLAC, Stanford University, the Dept. of Energy, or
the U.S. government.