[comp.lang.forth] Networking in Forth

baccala@eng.umd.edu (Brent W. Baccala) (04/29/91)

Since my experience with FORTH has been limited to public-domain systems and
those I have designed myself, I have long assumed that commerical FORTHs
provided some additional built-in functions unfamiliar to me.  I assumed
one of these functions to be networking, but have not seen the subject
mentioned in BASIS 15.  Do commerical FORTHs provide network support?

Although many FORTHs are used for embedded control systems where network
isn't (currently) a concern, the rapid growth of LANs and distributed
systems seem to indicate a need for this issue to be addressed in an ANS,
albeit optionally.

Should the FORTH ANS include an optional word set providing basic network
functions, such as name resolution, connection establishment, stream I/O,
datagram I/O, etc?
--
					-bwb

					Brent W. Baccala
					baccala@eng.umd.edu

Mitch.Bradley@ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley) (04/29/91)

> Should the FORTH ANS include an optional word set providing basic network
> functions, such as name resolution, connection establishment, stream I/O,
> datagram I/O, etc?

Regardless of the desireability of such functions, I believe that the
vast majority of the Forth community has very little, if any, experience
with such networking issues.

Consequently, I think it unlikely in the extreme that an attempt to
standardize Forth access to network functions would be worthwhile at
this stage of the ANS Forth effort.

Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM