Re: single-xt approach in the standard

Stephen Pelc <stephen@vfxforth.com> writes:

On 21 Sep 2024 at 21:18:00 CEST, "Ruvim" <ruvim.pinka@gmail.com> wrote:

What are the particular fundamental issues?  And where can these people
be heard?

>
Mitch Bradley was particularly fervent in retaining state-smart words,
especially when defining Domain Specific Languages (DSLs).

Everything I read from him on the topic was that he likes interpretive
control structures, and that he has not experienced problems with
state-smart implementations of such words.  Fervent?

He has a point, but the TC has been so fervent in its "state smart
words are evil" approach that he simply regards Open Firmware
as its own standard - another group lost to the current Forth
standard.

Mitch Bradley has been on the TC.  It's interesting that you
characterize the TC as being 'fervent in its "state smart words are
evil" approach'; you were there, too.  My impression used to be that
while both camps existed and their influence is visible in various
places in Forth-94, the intention was that at least words like S"
should be implementable as STATE-smart words, and that the fact that
the text of the standard does not reflect this intention is an
oversight.  Is my impression wrong?

Does this matter? Yes, there are still OF projects at compaanies
like Apple.

Evidence?  Certainly <https://apple.fandom.com/wiki/Open_Firmware> says:

|Starting in 2006, Apple phased out its use of Open Firmware in favor
|of EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) during its transition to Intel
|processors.

So if Apple still uses Open Firmware, even Apple fans don't know about
it.

Oracle has canceled SPARC development in 2017, so that branch of Open
Firmware is dying, too.

So the only living branch of Open Firmware may be at IBM.

It will be ineffective to assume that all this people will seek out
the Forth standards committee. It is up to the committee to
perform some research and talk sympathetically to people
who have given up on Forth standards. It's just practical
politics.

Has anyone held you back from taking such efforts?

- 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: https://forth-standard.org/
   EuroForth 2024: https://euro.theforth.net