Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!ucbvax!PENNDRLS.BITNET!DAVID From: DAVID@PENNDRLS.BITNET Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: interactive control structures Message-ID: <9001070107.AA03495@jade.berkeley.edu> Date: 6 Jan 90 23:50:14 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Forth Interest Group International List Organization: The Internet Lines: 23 Bill writes that he prefers traditional forth input handling or compile-by-line input handling because he likes to type in a line, think about it, and *then* tell the computer to go ahead and do it. With this I heartily agree. In fact, I sometimes have the same problem with non-command oriented systems. (Not well designed ones, but, as we all know, 90% of everything is crap.) I had been thinking about the compile-a-line approach before the topic came up here, and it seems to me that the second biggest advantage of the approach is that it eliminates the need for state-smart words. In fact, from a system design standpoint that may be the bigger of the advantages (interactive control structures being the other under discussion). It seems to me you need two compile buffers in addition to the end of the dictionary you are compiling into: one for the line you are compiling, and a temp buffer for doing things like : Offset ( n -- a ) [ 4 CellSize * ] Literal * Buffer + ; How does (e.g.) Stoic handle this? -- R. David Murray (DAVID@PENNDRLS.BITNET, DAVID@PENNDRLS.UPENN.EDU)