Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!bouma From: bouma@cs.purdue.EDU (William J. Bouma) Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: Forth standards - just how standard CAN you make it?? Summary: a minority of one Keywords: C Message-ID: <9195@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> Date: 8 Jan 90 23:26:26 GMT References: <9001081531.AA15962@jade.berkeley.edu> Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University Lines: 52 In article <9001081531.AA15962@jade.berkeley.edu> Forth Interest Group International List writes: >... >As a poor student - I cannot afford the new >Forth Standard. And until I will be making $20+ an hour, I will not buy one. >Maybe not even then... If my forth runs on my machine only, but does it well, >why standarize? I don't see why you people use Forth, if you expect your code >to work on different machines. If you want to port a small application, you >might as well rewrite it - optimize it for the particular machine... If you >are trying to port a larger application - well, consider yourself lucky if at >least a minor portion of the code isn't written in assembly. Use C, or Pascal, I think these are stupid arguments against a forth standard. If some people can't afford to buy it that is tough. The benefits of a standard outweigh petty individual problems. As for using some other standardized language instead, where would we be if everyone thought like this? Every- one would be using fortran because stuff in c and pascal would need to be "re-written" to run on different machines. Sure, as long as you do your own stuff on your own machine you are fine. But if you want to share code, (and that is the what people in the real world want), you need a standard or you spend your whole life porting. Just what does it take to make a standard forth? I have read arguments in this group that making a true standard will take away some of the flexibility. This seems like it is probably the case, but again I believe the benefits exceed a minor loss in flexibility. To me the definition of "standard" implies that there should be absolutely no machine dependency. The language will not allow assembly, but should provide better high- level ways to do the things one would otherwise want to do in assembly. Sure, the f83 standard says assembly is not standard, but so many things are easier and faster to do in assembly that nearly everyone who uses forth uses it. Another thing the standard needs is types. It should not be a part of the standard how big an integer or how big a stack element is. All machine level junk must be eliminated. >or whatever... We do NOT need a Reverse-Polish C! (I apologize: I do not >have the memory for names... Whoever said this before...) This has been said by several people now in this group, but I do not see any basis for it. It seems I am in a small minority that thinks forth could be a much improved language by changing it a bit. Why does it bother some of you so much that some of us entertain this idea? Where would forth be now if Chuck hadn't been inspired to try something different? I thought forth people would be more open-minded! >... certain things must remain the same for us to call it FORTH. What things? When does my language stop being FORTH and begin to be Reverse-Polish C or Reverse-Polish LISP? Why don't you people who are griping use a little imagination? If you are not interested in creative contribution, just wait until you have something solid to criticize. -- Bill || ...!purdue!bouma