wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (02/26/91)
> Also an aside > to the ANSI committee: If there is interest in simplifying the wordsets, > wouldn't it make sense to remove (or move to an extended wordset,) the > following words: 0= 0< 0> 1+ 1- 2* 2/ and possibly other words which are > really a simple combination of atomic words? I understand the origins of There is not much sentiment in the committee for removing words that have been in every previous standard and are not broken. Doing so would be a pain for programmers and I don't see that it would be of much value. Who wants to worry about whether or not "0<" is in a system or not? I don't want to have to preface all my standard programs with: : missing bl word find nip 0= ; missing 0< .if : 0< 0 < ; .then missing 0= .if : 0= 0 = ; .then missing 0> .if : 0= 0 > ; .then etc. It's just too boring. For that matter, I wish that all the plausible conditionals were required. I just can't understand why some conditionals are standard but others aren't. Obviously, you can get by without all of them, but why make it hard on the poor programmer? There is enough to remember about Forth already without having to remember which conditionals are perversely omitted. A long time ago, I proposed including all the conditionals (< > = <= >= U< U> U<= U>= 0< 0> 0= 0<= 0>=) in ANS Forth, but it didn't pass. Mitch Bradley, wmb@Eng.Sun.COM
dcp@world.std.com (David C. Petty) (03/11/91)
In article <9102261407.AA20302@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV writes: ``I don't want to have to preface all my standard programs with: `` ``: missing bl word find nip 0= ; ``missing 0< .if : 0< 0 < ; .then ``missing 0= .if : 0= 0 = ; .then ``missing 0> .if : 0= 0 > ; .then ``etc. `` ``It's just too boring. And yet you (presumably) don't mind adding ``#include <stdio.h>'' to (virtually) every C program you write. I find having to include stuff to be (mildly) boring, too, but not too much of a burden on my programming in C. ANS Forth will (currently) have no _standard_ mechanism for including standard libraries, but it is quite acceptable (for me) to include a preface to my code that I have ``standardized'' -- David C. Petty | dcp@world.std.com | ...!{uunet,bu.edu}!world!dcp /\ POBox Two | CIS: 73607,1646 | BIX, Delphi, MCIMail: dcp / \ Cambridge, MA | `It must've been some-other-body, / \ 02140-0001 USA | uh uh babe it wasn't me...' /______\