RAYBRO%UTRC@UTRCGW.UTC.COM ("William R Brohinsky", ay) (07/03/90)
Say what you will, John's 30-sided sponge analogy is more accurate than he thought, by dint of the fact that a 30-sided wrench will fit neither 5- nor 6-sided nuts and bolt heads! (sockets that will fit more than one kind of bolt are called N-point sockets, because they resemble stars: N-sided sockets have N sides with N acute angles between them! However, X3J14 seems to have come up with just such sponges as cures for disputes. I, for one, will avoid using X3J14's standard for as long as I can maintain a FORTH that is standard with what I've been using, which is essentially F83 with machine-specific extensions. I have J-forth, Multi-forth, FPC, F83, and PolyForth's chipFORTH68hc11. I have never used the polyFORTH product beyond an initial checkout. I will not spend the necessary $$$ (after having working amiga FORTHs for two years) to get updates to J- and Multi- once the standard is agreed on and implemented. It all seems so sad: X3J14's goodness ran out for me when they killed NOT. All the rest has been just nails in the coffin lid. I couldn't care less about the kind of standardization that X3J14 is involved in. I don't see the likelyhood of John W's dream of applications that can run, portable with ease, on many platforms. Even where C is standard, it isn't very. Because I use PC's (with Windows 3, at the moment) and amigas (with EXEC/ INTUITION) and may someday be forced to use and program macs and/or OS/2 I am already aware that you just can't do much with the machine without going beyond the standard. The thing that makes a standard necessary for C or FORTRAN or Modula-2, etc. is that they guard you from the implementation, and require you to take things as givens: how parameters are passed, how to interface machine code to them, how variables, constants, and arrays are defined and accessed. FORTH lets you find out what is necessary to define stuff, and how to use it. I don't use the PolyFORTH implementation because they don't tell me enough about the kernal. I am only just beginning to enjoy using C, but it's taken 5 years, and $ to the establishment. John is more right than he may know... raybro
a684@mindlink.UUCP (Nick Janow) (07/04/90)
RAYBRO%UTRC@UTRCGW.UTC.COM (William R Brohinsky) writes: > Because I use PC's (with Windows 3, at the moment) and amigas (with EXEC/ > INTUITION) and may someday be forced to use and program macs and/or OS/2 I am > already aware that you just can't do much with the machine without going > beyond the standard. Maybe we should get the major players (Macintosh, Windows, etc) to accept or choose a standard FORTH interface. GUIs are important, and will become more so in the future. It would be easier to get a standard established now, before several conflicting "common usages" are around. Perhaps this is one lesson we've learned from the conflicts in developing ANSI FORTH?
dwp@willett.UUCP (Doug Philips) (07/04/90)
RAYBRO%UTRC@UTRCGW.UTC.COM ("William R Brohinsky", ay), in <9007040411.AA28059@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, writes: > However, X3J14 seems to have come up with just such sponges as cures > for disputes. I, for one, will avoid using X3J14's standard for as > long as I can maintain a FORTH that is standard with what I've been using, > which is essentially F83 with machine-specific extensions. Which is to say that you have no interest in "portability"? > and implemented. It all seems so sad: X3J14's goodness ran out for me > when they killed NOT. All the rest has been just nails in the > coffin lid. Except that they didn't. See Mitch's post for my feelings on this. > I couldn't care less about the kind of standardization that X3J14 is > involved in. I don't see the likelyhood of John W's dream of applications > that can run, portable with ease, on many platforms. Even where C is > standard, it isn't very. I'm curious as to *why* you think this. Do you think that it is inherently impossible and therefore that Wavrik is deluded (or worse)? (If so, why?) Or do you think that it is merely an uninteresting thing for Forth people to do, so that it will never happen do to lack of effort? Or??? > Because I use PC's (with Windows 3, at the moment) and amigas (with EXEC/ > INTUITION) and may someday be forced to use and program macs and/or OS/2 > I am already aware that you just can't do much with the machine without > going beyond the standard. The thing that makes a standard necessary for > C or FORTRAN or Modula-2, etc. is that they guard you from the implementation, > and require you to take things as givens: how parameters are passed, how > to interface machine code to them, how variables, constants, and arrays are > defined and accessed. (Aha! I think I've discovered something here!) Do you think it is against the nature of Forth to be insulated against such things? It seems that a lot of the discussion about the ANSI effort revolves around what it is that various people see as the essence of Forth. We've already gone through the Forth is not PostScript business (for example). Do I understand correctly that what you are saying is that Forth is really a philosophy of "total transparancy/openness" and that standardizing on particular implementations is useless/silly/counter-to-the-spirit-of-Forth/??? ?? -Doug --- Preferred: willett!dwp@hobbes.cert.sei.cmu.edu OR ...!sei!willett!dwp Daily: ...!{uunet,nfsun}!willett!dwp [in a pinch: dwp@vega.fac.cs.cmu.edu]