ir230@sdcc6.ucsd.edu (john wavrik) (04/23/91)
FIG-Forth > Summary: ANS Forth did not cause the "evaporation" of the FIG > model. It simply faced up to the reality that said model is already > gone. In a recent article I questioned the clarity of the current state of the proposed ANSI Standard. I raised issues about portability and power. I tried to pinpoint present deficiencies and make suggestions for improvement. I gave some specific examples of how depriving words of meaning (semantics in the true sense) or fuzzing the meaning of words will lead to a decrease in both power and portability. Nowhere in this article was FIG-Forth mentioned. The thrust of the article was that Forth depends on a clear meaning for its words. Since, however, FIG-Forth has been mentioned in a return posting, let me ask something that I have always found puzzling. FIG-Forth has always meant to me the following qualities: (1) A high degree of portability (2) Great power and control over the language (3) Great acceptance and availability The FIG model was intended (and realized) as a basis for commercial implementations of Forth and, during its era, it did form the basis of both commercial and public domain implementations of the language. It was responsible for a public perception that Forth allowed users to do extraordinarily powerful things -- and, in most cases, port- ably. I have come to find out (only recently) that FIG-Forth has negative connotations for some members of the ANSI team -- and I am at a loss to understand which of the above characteristics are found objection- able. To set the record straight: I do not program in FIG-Forth. I do, however, regard the above three qualities as timeless and achievable. "If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future." -- Winston Churchill John J Wavrik jjwavrik@ucsd.edu Dept of Math C-012 Univ of Calif - San Diego La Jolla, CA 92093