Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Paul Rubin Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: Standard or Forth? Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2016 12:41:34 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 20 Message-ID: <87shtakwlt.fsf@jester.gateway.pace.com> References: <57cb5023.1577548706@news.eternal-september.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="590ea01354cf4bcbcd857d7ebbd88128"; logging-data="24703"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX1+n8PvKeLiNQ5c+PUlL5+ak" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:I42r8c4tBLn9Ei+ls/du9g+12o8= sha1:iYEuCrV9GJgPINDBjKJBkVBNoz4= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.forth:50758 "HAA" writes: > ANS does not require a program to have "absolute portability". What > it does require is that non-portabilities be documented. Despite the > low bar ANS has placed on program portability, there has been very > little interest in writing them. That includes me. You can ask why > it is, but the fact of it cannot be denied. Forth is unusual among programming languages in that its target environments very often involve special hardware. For such programs the concept of portability doesn't apply since there is nothing to port to. I've thought of ANS as providing a common word set for programmers to expect to work on multiple systems, but in general they will expect to add target-specific code for their own application environment. An example of something ANS standardizes is that OR means inclusive or. There are some non-standard systems where it means exclusive or. ANS just means there is a base wordset that does what you expect it to do. It doesn't claim to give you everything you need. You are on your own for stuff that's not in the standard.