Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!topaz!uwvax!astroatc!philm
From: philm@astroatc.UUCP (Phil Mason)
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Extensibility (Re: RRe: What's so good about FORTH?
Message-ID: <473@astroatc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Jul-86 10:46:09 EDT
Article-I.D.: astroatc.473
Posted: Wed Jul  2 10:46:09 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 3-Jul-86 06:58:30 EDT
References: <201@pyuxv.UUCP> <3700003@uiucdcsp> <132@vaxb.calgary.UUCP> <152@cci632.UUCP> <770@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: philm@astroatc.UUCP (Phil Mason)
Organization: Astronautics ATC, Madison, WI
Lines: 45
Keywords: FORTH, threaded-code

In article <770@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU> faustus@ucbcad.BERKELEY.EDU (Wayne A. Christopher) writes:
>Perhaps this discussion is bothering some people, but I have another
>question about forth for the gurus on the subject . . .

This IS net.lang. This is what this news-group is for. Now if we were on
net.women . . .      

As you were saying ...
>The major
>advantage of C (as I see it) over Fortran, etc is the possibility of
>defining structures and abstract types.  Does forth have anything
>comparable, or are there any forth paradigms that make this easy?  

Yes, there are the Builds(Create) - Does words that can define a new class
of words. The Builds(Create) words allocates the proper space and does
any necessary initialization. Does describes the run-time behavior of the
new word. A short time ago, a gentleman posted a 16 line Forth implementation
of Pascal record structure types on net.lang.forth. You can very succinctly
describe any data structure you want either from scratch with Builds(Create)-
Does or a set of tools that use them.

>Also, what sort of position does forth take in the spectrum with functional
>programming on one end and object-oriented programming on the other?
>It seems to me that (like C) forth doesn't really try to deal with this
>problem...

Forth philosophers point out that a guiding principle behind Forth is
that Forth words should do their share of the work. In other words, the
functionality of the system should be equitably broken among the component
words. If I have a statement that says 'FOO BAR BAZ', each of the words is
a tool, a building block to describe the semantics of the statement. 
If these words do their own work and function as a tool, they can be used
by other words and in other "sentences" to convey additional meaning. The goal
is to make an application and user-interface that looks like English and to
create component words that can make new, semantically correct sentences.


-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Kirk  : Bones ?                |  Phil Mason, Astronautics Technical Center
Bones : He's dead Jim.         |  Madison, Wisconsin - "Eat Cheese or Die!"
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -|  
...seismo-uwvax-astroatc!philm |  I would really like to believe that my
...ihnp4-nicmad/               |  employer shares all my opinions, but . . . 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=