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Re: [colorforth] an observation


>    I can add any structure.   Does this sintax make  adding structures
> harder?

I don't think so.

>   If "... "  appears before "else" is  this a compiler error or a misuse of
> of the word "..." ?
> Oh,   I should use then instead.

How can it possibly be a compiler error?  The human had to put it there.  It's
a misuse of ... to put it in front of then/else.

> >  foo cond1 if action1 ; then con2 if cond3 if action2 ; then action3 ;
> then
>   This is a terminat or continue structure.  I can find my through  this
> maze.

It is nonetheless a maze, and as a software developer, I have more important
things to do with my time than traverse a maze.  :)

> I like getting rid of ";"  but I don't like hiding a conditional exit in
> every red word.
> Posibly   structure words also.
> Which words end?   red words, else ...
> I know else does because you told me.

Well, this is a research issue.  Rob Pike, one of the inventors of both Unix
and Plan 9, has written an excellent document on the futility of systems
programming research, because everyone just ends up re-implementing Unix
poorly, or worse, they use an existing Unix and just hack a specific subportion
of it until it behaves like they want.  Then they write a paper on it, all
scientific-like.

Instead, Pike wants to see more creativity involved with software development
and systems research.  I feel that this falls squarely inside the realm of R&D
that Pike wants to see done, even though Pike has a known hatred for
non-type-safe languages (which I find intriguing since he's also a C bigot, and
as we all know, C isn't exactly a good example of a type *safe* language). 
Evolution, not revolution.  ColorForth is revolution when viewed from
classical/ANS Forth points of view, but in reality, it's just an evolution of
Chuck's MachineForth concept.

I would like to see this kind of research too.  After all, I love ColorForth,
and love how easy it makes many things.  But I'm still stuck in the "classical"
MachineForth stage of my software's development because I like to take things
slowly.

--
Samuel A. Falvo II


> 
> Robert Patten
> 
> 
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