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- Path: sparky!uunet!olivea!mintaka.lcs.mit.edu!hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu!mikc
- From: mikc@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Mike Coughlin)
- Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
- Subject: Re: Still Trying to Decide about the Standard
- Message-ID: <1992Aug20.132157.6805@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
- Date: 20 Aug 92 13:21:57 GMT
- References: <3956.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us> <1992Aug19.125915.14313@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <vz!n=ym.xtifr@netcom.com>
- Sender: news@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu
- Organization: /etc/organization
- Lines: 138
-
- In article <vz!n=ym.xtifr@netcom.com> xtifr@netcom.com (Chris Waters) writes:
- >In <1992Aug19.125915.14313@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> mikc@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Mike Coughlin) writes:
- >
- >>In article <3956.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us> ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie) writes:
- >>>Category 2, Topic 2
- >>>Message 116 Thu Aug 06, 1992
- >>>E.RATHER [Elizabeth] at 00:25 EDT
- >>>
- >>>Re the recently quoted:
- >>> My own view is that a standard should solidify,
- >>>clarify, extract,
- >>> and document existing practice. The problem is in identifying "existing
- >>>practice." Does it mean:
- >>> (a) Stuff previously standardized (remember, it's been 10 years since FORTH-
- >>>83)?
- >> It may have been a decade years since the 1983 standard was published,
- >>but we didn't get a good write-up out of that process. I've seen several
- >>people say that the '83 standard has major mistakes in it and that it
- >>can't be implemented. So the most important thing in my mind is to document
- >>what Forth was like 10 or 15 years ago in a clear consistant way.
- >
- >Huh? 10 or 15 years ago??? I have to heartily disagree!! Who cares
- >what stone age systems that ran on the 8080 were like? Let's take a
- >look at what Forth is like today!
- >
- Forth got its real start on the PDP-11. I remember the days when the
- 8080 was popular, and Forth wasn't used nearly as much as it is now.
- But don't confuse the systems with the language. Forth has a certain
- way of doing things that is the same now as it was fifteen years ago.
- If we take a look at what Forth is today, we see a hodge-podge of
- uncoordinated features in search of documentation. It reminds me of the
- programming systems used on the mini computers twenty years ago. When
- I first saw Forth I was amazed at how much improvement could be made
- in programming by throwing features away instead of adding them.
-
- >>The committee followed the example
- >>of many other standards committees in writing hard to read documentation
- >>that is supposed to be aimed at experts in the field. It should be for
- >>those with technical backgrounds who never heard of Forth and want to know
- >>what is standard Forth practice.
- >
- >Again, huh? The purpose of the standard is to describe the language.
- >Not to describe practice, and not to stand as a tutorial!
- >
- Forth cannot be described without describing its practice. Forth is
- not just a collection of words. It is a way of doing things that is
- very much different from the way other computer langauges do things.
- I don't say that the standard should be a beginners tutorial, but if
- it is to describe Forth, it must have tutorial material in it. And
- if this material is unclear, the document will be useless.
-
- >>> (c) Stuff that most implementors have done some way, but their approaches
- >>>differ (in which case, how to find a synthesis or pick one?)?
- >> This is the most difficult area a committee has to deal with. If there
- >>was a clear solution, then the implementors would be doing it the same
- >>way.
- >
- >Piffle! Even with problems that have only one simple, clear solution,
- >different vendors may still have used different NAMES for the same
- >functions! And picking one set of names may break a lot of existing code
- >that uses a different set of names. I think that the statement above is
- >a gross oversimplification of the problem.
- >
- Well I can certainly agree about my statement being a gross
- oversimplification of the problem. In fact, I even think all the messages
- I've seen over the past few years about the standard have been
- oversimplifications.
- If the buyers of Forth systems would state that they will not fork
- over their cash for systems that have different names, then the vendors
- would start using the same names. If people who publish code would
- always use standard words, system buyers would know what word names
- to look for. But it hasn't happened yet. Having a new feature is
- always more interesting than using the same old words. I don't expect
- a new standard document to change that.
-
- >>Have they consulted with vendors and publishers of PD Forth
- >>systems who cannot attend meetings of the committee or who have not sent
- >>in proposals?
- >
- >Gawd, I sure hope not, considering how thoroughly lame most of the PD
- >systems I've seen have been! :-)
- >
- >>> (d) Stuff that <n> implementors do (in which case, what is <n>? And, as in
- >>>(c), how to resolve different approaches to the same problem?)?
- >> Don't forget that the negative of this statement also deserves
- >>consideration. Many implementors might deliberately leave out stuff
- >>because they don't want it.
- >
- >And they can continue to do so. Only the CORE wordset is required by
- >the standard to be present in any given implementation.
- So we have a standard, but we don't have to follow it. We can
- use the core words to change everything else. I don't like the new
- core words any better than the old core words, so I wonder which
- I should use.
- >
- >> Forth was created by selecting a particular
- >>combination of programming methods that worked together. Adding to this
- >>does not make a better system. Anything that is missing from a particular
- >>version of Forth can be added by the user. It doesn't have to be done
- >>in a standard way. What we do have to standardize is the ability to
- >>add what is needed, not create a list of all commonly used programming
- >>ideas.
- >
- >Yeah, and for that matter, why bother to standardise words like `+'?
- >After all, the user can define it for himself! It doesn't have to be
- >done in a standard way. And we all know that reinventing the wheel over
- >and over and over again is *much* more important than getting any real
- >work done. The requirement to reinvent wheels, rather than
- >concentrating on the task at hand is why Forth enjoys such incredible
- >popularity in the mainstream computing world today!
- >
- We don't have to worry about '+' being standardized. The cpu
- designers have done that for us. Its difficult words like '/' that
- we have to worry about.
- The requirement to write new Forth standards keeps us from
- concentrating on the task at hand. The publication of new algorithims
- in the C language is what keeps C in the mainstream of popularity
- in the computing world today. What could we do to have new algorithims
- published in Forth instead? After the 83 standard was published,
- Laxen & Perry put their Forth system in the public domain. So we had
- not only a standard collection of Forth words, but a system that ran
- the same way on different platforms. A few applications were published
- using F83 and an attempt was made to publish portable code. But that
- has died down because there is to be an ANSI standard. We have had
- the chance to publish portable code in the past, but people don't
- do it. There is always some excuse to tinker with the system, change
- the words, make some improvements, include machine code for one
- particular platform, and so on. Without the desire to produce
- portable code, it woun't happen. It doesn't matter if Forth is too
- old fashioned or if it has just had the latest wizzy thing added to
- it.
-
- >Sheesh!
- >
- >I don't even know why I bother.
- I know why I bother. I don't want to have to work with C programs.
- The main thing I hate about these mesages is they take too long to
- read. And vastly too long to write.
-