cwpjr@cbnewse.att.com (clyde.w.jr.phillips) (03/08/91)
Bill, or anyone: If I state a convention that says all defined words (in this dialect) that require stack arguments will end up having the number of arguments coded into the name is this syntax? examples could be that : asks you for the number of arguments and ; produces something like this consistantly: either (2)doit or doit(2) etc. I'm interested in this vis the comment about how FORTHs "looser" syntax may mean more comments. This is opposite of what I "learned" about FORTH and I tend to write my code in a way to minimize comments. Yet the above mentioned "convention" seems highly desirable for advancing the notion that FORTH can comment itself. If I included functions to partition or flag data structures in a visable way ( like above ) then I would ( I think ) truly be able to Read my Code. Examples of this data structure stuff could be to compile all vars into a vocabulary that is always linked but perhaps better would be to have "variable" like ":" above prepend V_ to all variable names. Conventions could be V_, 2V, BA_ ( byte array ), WA_ ( word array ) , etc. But the real ? is how would CS describe this functionality? Syntax, good conventions, bad conventions, etc? Clyde "Them's mighty powerful words, stranger"