wmb@MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM (Mitch Bradley) (02/13/91)
> ``I beg to differ. ... The one > ``thing I find missing and can't figure out how to synthesize is > ``something like the eiffle retry semantics. > `` > ``the fact that we can think of problems with a part of the standard is no > ``reason to chuck that part. > > Au contraire... the fact that ``we can think of problems with a part > of the standard'' is _absolutely_ reason enough to ``chuck'' that > part. Only those things that are proven aspects of Forth should be > standardized as part of ANS Forth (in my heretical opinion). No way, Jose. I can think of problems with just about *every* aspect of Forth. There is no such thing as a word that does everything well. Should we chuck "DO .. LOOP" and "CREATE" and "ALLOT" and ":" ? The problems with those words are a lot more severe than the problems with CATCH/THROW. We don't chuck Newtonian mechanics because it ultimately fails to work in relativistic situations. In 99.9% of the cases, it is exactly what you want. Similarly CATCH/THROW solves the problem it was intended to solve, and solves it quite well. A lot of people think that problem is worth solving (I have the email to prove it), and those people that don't like it are encouraged to ignore the ERROR wordset and do whatever kind of error handling they want. I have a hard time respecting the "I don't like it, so you can't have it" attitude. Mitch
dcp@world.std.com (David C. Petty) (02/27/91)
I wrote: ``> Au contraire... the fact that ``we can think of problems with a part ``> of the standard'' is _absolutely_ reason enough to ``chuck'' that ``> part. Only those things that are proven aspects of Forth should be ``> standardized as part of ANS Forth (in my heretical opinion). In article <9102122125.AA04897@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, Mitch Bradley <wmb%MITCH.ENG.SUN.COM@SCFVM.GSFC.NASA.GOV> writes: ``No way, Jose. I can think of problems with just about *every* aspect ``of Forth. There is no such thing as a word that does everything well. <...stuff...> ``I have a hard time respecting the "I don't like it, so you can't have it" ``attitude. My desire to include a quote from another posting led to a misunderstanding in the definition of the word ``problem.'' I was referring to _new_ (and unproven) Forth features that may have problems that we do not yet know about and (in my heretical opinion) should, therefore, be chucked. It happened with FORTH-83 and I see no reason (please, do not send another X3J14 resume list) that prevents ANS Forth from suffering a similar fate. No one interested in any serious way in standardizing Forth would ever advocate removing DO from Forth, whatever its problems, and I do not. I find it _impossible_ to accept the ``I like it, so you must accept it'' attitude. -- 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...' /______\