Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!willett!ForthNet
From: ForthNet@willett.UUCP (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: ANS FORTH TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
Message-ID: <550.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 25 Feb 90 00:27:15 GMT
Organization: Latest link in the ForthNet chain.  (Pgh, PA)
Lines: 40

Category 10,  Topic 2
Message 219       Sat Feb 24, 1990
L.ZETTEL                     at 15:53 EST
 
  I have just received my copy of the minutes of X3J14 meeting eleven.  Since
  I believe there is a finite porbability they w ll eventually be read by
  somebody who was not at the meeting, and that it would not be easy to
  understand the summary of the remarks I made if you weren't there, here
  are the remarks re-expanded.
      The basic ideas are those of Russell Ackoff.  I apologize to Dr. Ackoff
  for any mangling that may occur in the translation (I can protect myself
  from my enemies, but what about my friends....?).
      A *system* is a collection of parts, each of whose perfomance is
  significantly affected by the behavior of at least one other part.
  Dr. Ackoff presents as a theorem the proposition that when any system is
  peforming as well as it can, none of the parts are performing as well
  as *they* can.  It follows as a corollary that any system in a state where
  each part is performing as well as it can will not be performing
  at maximum.
      Consider the classic three part system, of which countless examples
  have existed - a Forth novice, a Forth implementation, and a copy of
  "Starting Forth".  If the behavior of the implementation does not match
  the behavior described in Starting Forth, the performance of the novice is
  going to be impaired, even if the implementation is in some sense "better"
  because of its changed behavior.
      Dr. Ackoff presents an additional concept: A *mess* is a system of
  problems.  The important point to note is that a mess can not be
  straightened out just by solving the problems of which it is composed.
  You have to consider the way each problem acts on the others.  In Ackoff's
  view, what makes our time different is that we are recognizing and
  dealing with messes more than any other era.
      I submit that when you view the Forth scene at any level, what you will
  see is a mess (in the technical sense given above, of course :-).).  The
  best thing for Forth that we can do is work together to solve it,
  remembering that insisting on shoving any part (most definitely including
  ours) too close to optimum will hurt the system.
                                 -LenZ-
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