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From: Mitch.Bradley@ENG.SUN.COM
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Hyphens
Message-ID: <9105291720.AA13442@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 28 May 91 16:41:44 GMT
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Reply-To: Mitch.Bradley%ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV
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> 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:).

Given that overloaded operators are anathema to Forth philosophy, the names
have to indicate the data type of the operands.

We have "+" and "D+" and "F+".  We don't have enough spare letters to
uniquely assign a single letter as the "data type identifier" for every
useful data object, nor would that be wise from an ease-of-learning
standpoint.  Thus we are driven to "spell out" the names of data types
(e.g. FILE , LINE).  The remaining question is whether or not to use a
hyphen (READFILE vs. READ-FILE).  The "run-on words" approach can result
in "wierd" words where it is difficult to decide where to split them,
plus English usage says that individual words are spliced with a hyphen.

Mitch.Bradley@Eng.Sun.COM