Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!ucbvax!ETSUACAD.BITNET!S47852EF From: S47852EF@ETSUACAD.BITNET Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: What should the Standard include? Message-ID: <9105011900.AA04425@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 1 May 91 17:04:21 GMT References: Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: S47852EF%ETSUACAD.BITNET@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV Organization: The Internet Lines: 30 >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. I don't know about that- look at all the C implementations (And they *DO* differ amongst each other and can still claim ANSI portability!); they all have concrete ideas of what the syntax should be and what should it basically do. Yet, they implement it differently- why should this be any different in Forth? It isn't. Therefore, these criteria aren't as heavy as you make them but not as light as Brad makes them- they are STILL reasonable. >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. In your example, WORDLIST is the only thing that wouldn't have made it- floored and symmetrical division has been around and implemented over most of the entire existance of the language and therefore would pass the criteria. (I.e. You could have both in the language and DEFERed (Or, it's equivalent) the '/' operator and assigned it the PFA of the form you want to use... And we have had one or the other since atleast 1983-84 when the 83 standard came out!) Frank