Re: Why dial-a-standard is not a thing in Forth

In article <nnd$7cd5eca1$455e887d@ea22aa12ceb9f46f>,
Hans Bezemer  <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> wrote:

On 21-04-2025 09:38, dxf wrote:

On 21/04/2025 6:34 am, albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl wrote:

In article <757e2ced7a6ff4b73d9fa4531d29ff611dc72e10@i2pn2.org>,
dxf  <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:

On 20/04/2025 6:18 pm, Paul Rubin wrote:

anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) writes:

: DECIMAL ( -- )   10 BASE ! ;
does not contain an invocation of DECIMAL before this use of "10".

>
: DECIMAL ( -- ) 5 5 + BASE ! ;
>
should usually work.

>
Perhaps it's been updated since as the SwiftForth file I have has:
>
: DECIMAL ( -- )   $0A BASE ! ;
>
Closest thing to a BASE issue I've encountered was invoking the
screen editor while in HEX.  After doing that a few times I fixed
the editor!
>
Really annoying was LMI which on error switched to DECIMAL ...

>
They had it half right. All error numbers should be printed in
decimal. First aid read the paragraphs in de documentation
pertaining to this error.

>
I notice I did that for THROW numbers that don't have a message - after
which it reverts to the current BASE.  I should document that

somewhere...
>
To force myself to add messages to THROWs (especially in libs with
special conditions) I added THROW" - it works like a combination of
ABORT" and THROW. You need to specify a THROW code, you need to specify
a flag and you need to specify a message.

This perpetuates the myth that a message is documentation.
Error documentation in my manual can run over half a page, as
did the FORTRAN errors in IBM manual.
You don't actually want an error message, you want to know what
you can do about it.

>
Hans Bezemer

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