Re: Parsing timestamps?

On 2 Jul 2025 at 05:39:52 CEST, "dxf" <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:

On 1/07/2025 10:22 pm, Hans Bezemer wrote:

On 27-06-2025 03:39, dxf wrote:

Yet forthers have no problem with this.  Take the SwiftForth source code.
At best you'll get a general comment as to what a function does.  How do
they maintain it - the same way anyone proficient in C maintains C code.
Albert is correct.  Familiarity is key to readability.  That's not to say
code deserving documentation shouldn't have it.  OTOH one shouldn't be
expecting documentation (including stack commentary) for what's an everyday
affair in Forth.

 
I think you and Albert are on the right track here. Familiarity is a large
part of this "readability" thingy. There are a few notes I want to add,
though:
 
1. "Infix notation" is part of this familiarity. I know I've commented every
single expression in TEONW, since I understand those "infix" expressions much
better than all those RPN thingies - and you got something to check your code
against;
 
2. Intentionality. I do this a LOT. E.g. if you find OVER OVER in my code,
you may be certain those two items have nothing to do with each other. If you
find 2DUP it's a string, a double number or another "addr/count" array. CHOP
replaces 1 /STRING. Also: stack patterns can be codified like SPIN or STOW;
 
3. Brevity. Short definitions are easier to understand. If you can abstract
it, put a name of it can spare the performance - split it up.
 
4. Naming. I give this a LOT of thought. I prefer reading a name and having a
pretty good idea of what that code does (especially in the context of a
library or a program). See:
https://sourceforge.net/p/forth-4th/wiki/What%27s%20in%20a%20name%3F/
 
Feel free to disagree. It may not work for you, but at least it works for me.

 
Recently someone told me about Christianity - how it wasn't meant to be easy -
supposed to be, among other things, a denial of the senses.  I'm hearing much
the same in Forth.  That it's a celibate practice in which one denies everyday
sensory pleasures including readability and maintainability in order to achieve
programming nirvana.  Heck, if that's how folks see Forth then perhaps they
should stop before the cognitive dissonance sends them crazy or they pop a
cork.

IMHO religious belief is not a denial of the senses but a retraining. That
does not mean that the retraining leads to anything valuable, but it can
do depending very much on the trainer and trainee.

Stephen

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Stephen Pelc, stephen@vfxforth.com
Wodni & Pelc GmbH
Vienna, Austria
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