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	2016-09-26 23:28 +0000
Organization	Institut fuer Computersprachen, Technische Universitaet Wien
Message-ID	<2016Sep27.012811@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> (permalink)
References	(2 earlier) <2016Sep24.125503@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <8382eca3-ad7a-4e22-8bcd-61bd231b3995@googlegroups.com> <H92dnYnIgd7oGXrKnZ2dnUU7-UXNnZ2d@supernews.com> <2016Sep26.165803@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <wr6dnVgc-svm23TKnZ2dnUU7-fnNnZ2d@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:
>>>but once a word is in the standard it's hard to get rid of it.
>> 
>> Currently it is much easier to get rid of words than to add words;
>> admittedly, for the getting-rid part to actually take effect takes a
>> lot of time, but the amount of work required is smaller by several
>> orders of magnitude:
>
>By "it's hard" I don't necessarily mean that it's less work: I mean
>that it is difficult (perhaps impossible) to get rid of a feature once
>it is in use in applications because -- quite rightly -- people tend
>to treat not breaking code as very important.

What you describe is they way it should work.  But it actually does
not work that way.  It actually works the way I described in the part
that you conveniently deleted, so here it is again:

|For getting rid of a word, you don't even need to make an RfD; someone
|proposes to make the word obsolescent at a meeting, without providing
|any numbers on usage or anything, the committee takes a vote, and the
|word is obsolescent, and will be gone in the next-but-one standard
|unless there is a concerted effort to keep it in, as happened for
|FORGET (and even then the committee decided to keep it obsolescent, so
|the fans of FORGET may have to make the same effort the next time).
|This has happened to LOCALS| and [COMPILE], and almost to (LOCAL).

So while parts of the committee are extremely reluctant when it comes
to adding new words (because it is supposedly so difficult to get rid
of them), the committee is quite keen on making words obsolescent
(which leads to deletion from the standard in a later version), and
does not do any research about the usage of the word in applications
before taking that decision.

A nice example is LOCALS|.  It was added in Forth-94, and was not a
good solution, so it was declared obsolescent in Forth-2012 and will
be removed from the standard in the next version.  This was not at all
difficult.

What actually is difficult is getting a de-standardized word really
out of use, as we have seen in occasional discussions of NOT.  But
such problems can just as well occur if the word has never been
standardized; example: "{".

- 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/

Thread

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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