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Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth

From anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl)
Newsgroups comp.lang.forth
Subject Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth
Date 2016-09-28 06:43 +0000
Organization Institut fuer Computersprachen, Technische Universitaet Wien
Message-ID <2016Sep28.084344@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> (permalink)
References (5 earlier) <e848ccc0-ca59-491e-8ec2-bb517d419782@googlegroups.com> <87mviv8wlh.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com> <m4qdnYQUnP7nUnXKnZ2dnUU7-dudnZ2d@supernews.com> <2016Sep26.160453@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <DvidnSxp18Tj3HTKnZ2dnUU7-SHNnZ2d@supernews.com>

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Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> writes:
>Anton Ertl <anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
>> Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> writes:
>>>Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Recognizers seem like a good idea, even if there are issues still to
>>>> work out.
>>>
>>>Well, yes, that's the problem.  Lots of things seem like a good idea,
>>>but have unexpected consequences.  Recognizers are probably the most
>>>significant change to the Forth language that has (ever?) been
>>>proposed, so a very high bar should be required for their adoption as
>>>standard.
>> 
>> On the contrary, recognizers are not a change to the Forth language
>> at all.  They have been in Forth since day 1.  The very first Forth
>> has recognized 1 as number.
>
>I'm fairly sure it was never described in such a way.

Maybe not.  Concepts evolve, and terms are introduced to go with that.
E.g., Luigi Galvani did not describe his discovery as
"bioelectromagnetics" ("electromagnetism" had not been discovered at
the time), yet <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity#History>
says: "In 1791, Luigi Galvani published his discovery of
bioelectromagnetics [...]".

>I don't think
>it's fair to use the term "recognizers" for both the recognizer
>proposal and what Forths have always done.

I think it's entirely fair.  When the difference plays a role, you can
add adjectives like "standardized", "system-pecific", "user-defined",
"system-defined", "extensible", and "non-extensible".

So what Forth systems have always done is to have a bunch of
standardized system-defined recognizers and system-specific hooks for
adding user-defined or more system-defined recognizers.  What is being
proposed came out of discussions for standardizing these hooks.

>I agree.  However, its scope is not limited to literals, and some
>non-literal recognizers have been discussed here.  (e.g. the ">X"
>syntax to mean "TO X").

Actually "->X".  Yes, that is possible with user-defined recognizers,
and it is also possible with the system-specific interpreter hooks
that Forth systems have always had.  And these system-specific hooks
have actually been used for non-literals, e.g., the dot-parser of VFX.
So that's nothing new that the recognizer proposal introduces.

>But there is a very significant
>difference between something vendors do (and can be revised or removed
>completely) and something which is standard, and therefore much harder
>to remove if it turns out not to have been a good idea.

As we have seen with "{", vendors do not revise or remove non-standard
words.  And as we have seen with LOCALS|, it is easy to de-standardize
words that turned out not to have been a good idea.

You can think only about removing any proposed feature, and when
that's your only goal, then yes, de-standardizing a feature that has
been standardized is harder than de-standardizing it if it has not
been.

Or you can think about what benefits the proposed feature would
provide, what costs it would impose on system implementors and program
readers, if the proposed interface is good or if you can suggest
improvements.

I don't think an attitude that only takes de-standardization into
consideration is cunducive to the aim of having programs and libraries
that are portable between systems.  The latter is certainly an aim I
am pursuing.  What aims are you pursuing?

- anton
-- 
M. Anton Ertl  http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
     New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html
   EuroForth 2016: http://www.euroforth.org/ef16/

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Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-15 14:19 +0000
  Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2016-09-15 17:58 -0700
    Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth tabcomputing@gmail.com - 2016-09-24 18:48 -0700
      Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2016-09-24 21:47 -0700
        Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth tabcomputing@gmail.com - 2016-09-25 08:11 -0700
          Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2016-09-25 20:14 -0700
            Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-26 11:12 +0200
              Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Alex <alex@rivadpm.com> - 2016-09-26 12:16 +0100
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-26 14:30 +0200
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Coos Haak <htrofhc@gmail.com> - 2016-09-26 15:10 +0200
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-26 16:07 +0200
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-26 13:43 +0000
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-26 16:36 +0200
        Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Rod Pemberton <NoHaveNotOne@zxdehrnyya.cam> - 2016-09-25 15:18 -0400
  Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anotherreepca@gmail.com - 2016-09-18 09:01 -0700
    Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2016-09-18 11:35 -0500
      Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth minforth@arcor.de - 2016-09-19 03:21 -0700
        Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-19 09:49 -0500
          Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth minforth@arcor.de - 2016-09-19 12:38 -0700
            Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-20 11:23 -0500
              Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth lawrencedo99@gmail.com - 2016-09-20 12:55 -0700
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-21 02:24 +0200
              Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2016-09-20 14:52 -0700
      Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2016-09-19 10:12 -0700
        Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2016-09-19 12:40 -0500
    Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth stephen@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2016-09-21 10:09 +0000
  Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth albert@cherry.spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2016-09-19 13:29 +0200
    Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth foxaudioresearch@gmail.com - 2016-09-19 07:16 -0700
    Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-19 17:10 +0000
  Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth humptydumpty <ouatubi@gmail.com> - 2016-09-20 22:43 -0700
    Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-21 12:39 +0000
      Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2016-09-22 11:40 -0700
        Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth humptydumpty <ouatubi@gmail.com> - 2016-09-23 09:28 -0700
      Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth humptydumpty <ouatubi@gmail.com> - 2016-09-23 09:19 -0700
  Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-23 20:11 -0700
    Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-24 10:55 +0000
      Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Matthias Trute <matthias.trute@gmail.com> - 2016-09-24 11:14 -0700
        Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-25 03:01 -0500
          Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Matthias Trute <matthias.trute@gmail.com> - 2016-09-25 02:21 -0700
            Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth lawrencedo99@gmail.com - 2016-09-25 14:01 -0700
            Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-25 15:04 -0700
              Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth lawrencedo99@gmail.com - 2016-09-25 17:39 -0700
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-25 17:56 -0700
              Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Mikael Nordman <oh2aun@gmail.com> - 2016-09-25 20:34 -0700
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2016-09-25 22:37 -0700
              Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-26 02:34 -0500
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-26 14:04 +0000
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-26 10:40 -0500
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-28 06:43 +0000
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-28 04:48 -0500
          Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-26 14:58 +0000
            Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-26 11:02 -0500
              Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-26 23:28 +0000
                Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-27 03:49 -0500
              Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth Alex <alex@rivadpm.com> - 2016-09-27 11:43 +0100
        Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-26 16:01 +0000
          Re: Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) stephen@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2016-09-26 20:06 +0000
            Re: Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-27 14:49 +0000
              Re: Standardization Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-27 11:20 -0500
              Re: Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) stephen@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2016-09-28 12:07 +0000
                Re: Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) Bernd Paysan <bernd@net2o.de> - 2016-09-29 02:07 +0000
                Re: Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) hughaguilar96@gmail.com - 2016-09-28 19:40 -0700
                Re: Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) Ilya Tarasov <ilya74.tarasov@gmail.com> - 2016-09-29 15:22 -0700
                Re: Standardization Andrew Haley <andrew29@littlepinkcloud.invalid> - 2016-09-29 04:12 -0500
                Re: Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) stephen@mpeforth.com (Stephen Pelc) - 2016-09-29 10:15 +0000
                Re: Standardization (was: Essential properties of current standard Forth) Matthias Trute <matthias.trute@gmail.com> - 2016-09-29 10:38 -0700
      Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth trans <transfire@gmail.com> - 2016-09-26 18:04 -0700
        Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2016-09-27 13:37 +0000
  Re: Essential properties of current standard Forth jim.brakefield@ieee.org - 2016-09-28 13:54 -0700

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