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From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Conventions and "tricks" used in Forth
Message-ID: <2821.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 27 May 91 18:55:36 GMT
Organization: (n.) to be organized.  But that's not important right now.
Lines: 42

Category 3,  Topic 1
Message 108       Mon May 27, 1991
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 03:04 EDT
 
Re: Mitch.Bradley@ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley)

 > What are the reasons for your aversion to hyphenated words?

To me, a hyphen tends to imply that a word is doing two things. Your example
of READ-FILE is doing exactly that.  It is selecting the FILE device and doing
a READ on it.  READ-LINE is doing the same thing from the LINE device
(:whatever that is:).  I realize that this line of thinking is difficult to
accomplish in "standard" Forth, but it works quite nicely with oop extensions
or even with vocabularies (if you have enough of them).

Your point about hyphenated words is well taken though.  In general, they are
well understood.  I just also believe that information hiding can be used very
effectively.  You are right about #BUFFER being mistaken for the size of the
buffer.  I had forgotten about the previous usages of #.

 >> Likely, Martin "understands" what JOT means and within the
 >> context of ZEN, it is probably appropriate.
 >
 > I disagree.  I think the important thing is that it makes sense
 > to somebody else picking up the code for the first time.

It is ok for us to disagree, and I can see where you are coming from. 
However, on all the _large_ project I've been on, I ended up making a "new
language" anyways.  The systems had their own vocabularies and naming
conventions.  Within one line of applications (i.e. programming team) the
conventions would be pretty consistant, but outside of that "environment" the
conventions may be quite different.  If a someone (Forth guru or novice) wants
to understand the application, they had better start with learning the
conventions.  Hopefully, they will be documented, but my experience has been
that they never are. :(

IMHO, this is true in _any_ language.   {B-{)>   DaR
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