HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Subject: Conformance 
Distribution: world
Organization: .
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 21:47:10 +0000


In article <MATTHEW.92Aug12100841@matthew.ntl02.decnet.nokia.fi> matthew@ntl02.decnet.nokia.fi writes:

> 2.  A question about conformance and the like.  Here's an attempt to create
> a hierarchy of classes representing employees which have a distinguishing
> attribute "grade" on which they can be sorted (so we know who's first
> against the wall when the revolution comes :-)

> 
> class EMPLOYEE inherit                       class MANAGER inherit
>    INT_COMPAR                                   EMPLOYEE
>       rename   item as grade                       redefine grade
>       redefine grade                            end
>    end
>                                                 feature
>    feature                                         grade: INTEGER is 2
>       grade: INTEGER is 1                    end
> end
> 
> somewhere else...
> 
>    fred: EMPLOYEE;
>    bill: MANAGER;
> 
>    !!fred; !!bill;
>    if fred < bill then ...           -- *1*
>    if bill < fred then ...           -- *2*
> 
> as a reminder, the declaration of infix "<" in class INT_COMPAR is:
>    infix "<" (other: like Current): BOOLEAN
> 
> This leads me to ask, in the above example does *1* compile OK (as bill
> conforms to EMPLOYEE) but *2* not (as fred does not conform to MANAGER)?

Correct I believe, though I too do not have an Eiffel 3 compiler
(this is a thinly disguised hint to ISE ... :-)
The problem is in the use of the anchor like Current.  To make it work you
have to redefine "<" in EMPLOYEE to be explicitly EMPLOYEE.

> I'm afraid I don't have a compiler to check this out.  If this is indeed the
> case, how in general should you implement this type of thing, e.g. a class
>   SORTED_LIST[T->COMPARABLE]

You need some other class which inherits from COMPARABLE and fixes the type
of the arguments to the comparison operators, then use that to constrain the 
genericity.

Perhaps it would have been better if the original COMPARABLE class had a 
dummy feature
	other : like Current;
and then defined the relations as
	infix "<" (o: like other) : BOOLEAN;
	etc

Then you could achieve the effect by redefining only 'other' rather than all
of the relations.  Any comments from library writers?  In particular there
is probably some trick to avoid having all objects contain the attribute 
'other' which is never used.

Trevor Nash
tcn@holon.demon.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.lang.eiffel
From: fm04@rummelplatz.uni-mannheim.de ()
Subject: comp.lang.archiv ?
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 92 14:01:50 GMT
Organization: RUM

Hello,

is there an archiv where this newsgroup has been stored?

thanx,
Michael
-- 
Michael Utech, Max-Planck-str.26, 6806 Viernheim, Germany (06204/4031)
email:	fm04@rummelplatz.uni-mannheim.de, utech@informatik.uni-kl.de,
From: bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Free Forth
Date: 13 Aug 92 09:48:18 GMT
	<BEVAN.92Aug11091421@jaguar.cs.man.ac.uk>
	<1992Aug12.222916.19843@crd.ge.com>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester
In-reply-to: eaker@ukulele.crd.ge.com's message of 12 Aug 92 22:29:16 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.222916.19843@crd.ge.com> eaker@ukulele.crd.ge.com (Chuck Eaker) writes:
   In article <BEVAN.92Aug11091421@jaguar.cs.man.ac.uk>, bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan) writes:
   |> "Because C++ is `objected oriented' and so it must be better"
   |> Seriously that is the answer I got when I asked the same question.
   |> At this point I just gave up and walked away.

   Do not dismiss object-orientation so quickly.

I'm not dismissing OO, even though I think it has been hyped beyond
belief.  Look at the sentence I quoted.  Would you take someone
seriously if they pumped out trash like that?  To me it was a classic
case of "Emperor's new clothes".


   I've had the good fortune of using C++ on a 2 year project in a
   place where people literally wrote the book on object-oriented
   analysis and design (at least one of them :-). Once you've tried
   it, you won't go back.

Well guess what I was doing with C++ back in '86 :-)
As to going back, I'm not sure as I'm still not sure what OO is.
Everybody has their own idea about what the essence of OO is and they
are often conflicting.  I think can currently be called an "object
based" rather than "object oriented" programmer, but the former is
just a new label on an old idea.


   An object-oriented approach would be a big help in bringing order
   to this nightmare. Provide me with a list of the kinds of things I
   can create and destroy. Tell me what operations I can perform on
   them.

This does not require OO.  Parnas discussed these sorts of issues back
in 72.  Look at any papers on Alphard or CLU and they will espouse the
above point of view but neither are OO and both predate all the
_current_ OO hoopla.  IMHO the last thing FORTH needs is OOing.  By
all means introduce more structure, but that does not mean OO.

bevan
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
From: @moci.uucp
Subject: Re: Free Forth
Organization: ICOM, Inc., West Allis, WI
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 92 14:49:10 GMT
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

mikeh@starnine.com (Mike Haas) writes:
: [...]  : 
: If someone were to start a large, funded effort to produce a hot
: general-purpose product (game, word processor, etc.), and they
: chose YOU to head up the engineering effort...would you choose
: Forth

Yes!  Providing, however, that a fast, robust, vendor-supported Forth
was available for the target platforms, and the application doesn't
just scream to be implemented in another language (some dBase variant,
perhaps).  As you have pointed out, I would also expect the vendor to
provide the tools many other languages consider essential:  file access,
memory allocation, floating point support, and the ability to link with
the target's object files.  Thankfully, there *ARE* currently vendors
that provide such systems (at least on the IBM-compatible platform I've
been working on for the last few years).

This is the reason I would like to see commercial Forth systems thrive.
I have not seen any public-domain implementation that can match the
compilers I've purchased in overall features:  performance, documentation,
language extensions (portable within the vendor's product line), and
support.  The difference between a good commercial Forth and a PD Forth
is one I am willing to pay for, because I know I can make the development
system pay for itself.  If all the software you're ever going to write
with a compiler isn't going to bring in the few hundred bucks you paid
for the system, I might suggest that you'd eat better by selecting a
different career  ;-).

That's my argument for a professional Forth system.  I also believe that
PD Forths serve important purposes:  they allow college students to get
their feet wet, and they allow hobbyists to have a low-cost tool to 
hack out their latest whiz-bang home automation system.  It is my hope,
however, that PD Forth authors understand the educational importance of
their systems.  A truly bad implementation, or incomprehensible source
code/example code, is likely to leave a negative impression.  My opinion
is that a PD Forth which is clearly documented as an educational system,
and provides well-written examples and bibliographic references, will do
a great deal to enlarge the Forth community.  Attempting to bill a PD
Forth as "THE Forth of the 90's" or somesuch could be harmful, in that 
it could turn people away from purchasing (potentially better) vendor-
supported systems.  Why compete with vendors?

Mitch Bradley has started some interesting discussion here.  I feel
he is correct in believing that PD Forths are potentially harmful to
vendors, although the middle ground --- with PD Forths serving an
educational purpose and commercial Forths catering to professional
needs --- might prove to be the most beneficial.

Cheers,
Dave Ruske                          ...!uwm.edu!moci!dave
Sr. Software Engineer               GEnie: D.RUSKE1
ICOM, Inc.                          414-321-8000

[Opinions are mine, and may not reflect those of ICOM, Inc.]
 
e
	?
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Files on-line
Date: 17 Aug 92 12:15:12 GMT
Organization: EIEI-U

Category 1,  Topic 3
Message 162       Mon Aug 17, 1992
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 01:13 EDT
 
>>> New File <<<

  No. File Name      Type Address       YYMMDD    Bytes Accesses Lib
 2663 USE30.ZIP       X   B.SUTTON1     920816   172416      1     6
    Desc: Data base program in F-PC

This is a user-configurable database program written in FORTH.  It
 is menu driven and usable by just about anyone.  A little FORTH
 programming knowledge, however, will greatly increase its
 usefulness.
 User-defined routines can be added to create reports, do auto-
 calculation, and other miscellaneous functions that are loaded each
 time you open a particular database file.  A good way for a novice
 FORTH programmer to create some useful code without writing a full-
 blown program.

Keywords: database,data,f-pc,fpc,business

[ If you would like a copy of any of these files via email, send email
  to 'fneas@willett.pgh.pa.us'.  Binary files are UUencoded and split
  before mailing.  In the body of your message, include the lines:
		  send Name-of-file-you-want
		  path Your-Internet-relative-email-path
Note:	each file you want must have its own 'send' command.
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	you need only one path command per message.
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: An Open ANSI Forth Implementation
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Date: 18 Aug 92 11:49:19 GMT
Organization: EIEI-U

Category 10,  Topic 41
Message 57        Tue Aug 18, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 01:25 EDT
 
RE the several people who pointed out that Borland wasn't big & famous when
they introduced Turbo Pascal:  no, but Pascal was very widely known, as it had
been kicking around CS depts. for years, was developed by a widely respected
guru, and had already received a lot of notice. Borland's genius was in
hopping on a bandwagon and doing it right.  They didn't create the bandwagon.
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From: eaker@ukulele.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Charles E Eaker)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Free Forth
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:35:52 GMT
Reply-To: eaker@ukulele.crd.ge.com
Organization: GE CR&D Computer Science Program

In article <BEVAN.92Aug11092121@jaguar.cs.man.ac.uk>, bevan@cs.man.ac.uk (Stephen J Bevan) writes:
|>    By "free implementation period" I meant a period of time when
|>    implementations of subsets of the language were produced by
|>    non-professionals and widely distributed.
|> 
|> Well that's a rather narrow definition of "free implementation period".
|> So let me get this straight: if a "professional" company like AT&T
|> posts the complete sources to their C++ compiler (v1.0) to the net, it
|> is not a "free implementation period".  Is that correct under your
|> definition?

That's right. The kind of "free implementation period" that Forth
went through was like that of small C and the myriad small BASIC's. 
C survived this period better than BASIC which survived it better
than Forth. The GNU compilers lie somewhere in between the extremes
of the "smalls" and your AT&T example in that the GNU labor is partly
volunteer, but the volunteers are generally highly qualified
professionals in the field.

I've been informed that the proposed ANSI figForth would be more like
the GNU efforts than either of the two extremes, so I don't see a
great deal of danger in this effort.  However, Elizabeth Rather's
recent posting nicely outlines the business considerations which
strongly suggest that ANSI figForth will not meet with the popularity
that C did despite its technical merits.

-- 
Chuck Eaker / P.O. Box 8, K-1 3C12 / Schenectady, NY 12301 USA
eaker@crd.ge.com        eaker@crdgw1.UUCP       (518) 387-5964
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
From: pazsan@Informatik.TU-Muenchen.DE (Bernd Paysan)
Subject: Re: Free Forth
Originator: pazsan@hphalle5a.informatik.tu-muenchen.de
Organization: Technische Universitaet Muenchen, Germany
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 17:30:59 GMT


I think, the concept of vocabularies (WORDLISTs in ANS Forth) is a sort of
modular programing. I use this heavily in my bigFORTH (which supports a MODULE
concept with seperate binaries of the modules, and saving one or a group of
modules to disk and reloding them). If you never read a well structured and
modularized Forth manual, read the manual of bigFORTH (well, it's german :-). I
think, it's very easy to split the whole bulk of Forth words into categories;
even if they are in the same module or vocabulary.

To Elizabeth: What do you think, a professional Forth is worth? 1 million $ seems
to me 2-5 man years (the typical cost of a man year in computer industry rases
from 200'000 to half a million). I think, you are right, this is the time you
need for a professional and polished Forth. Even worse: You need more. I think,
with F83 and volksFORTH my bigFORTH may have 10 man years in it (maybe less,
because it was all voluntary work, and voluntaries don't work an 8 our day). And
polyFORTH will have much more work invested in it. But I have done it. So
downsizing bigFORTH to get a portable, neat system won't take too long. And it
wont hurt the concept too much. Certainly, bigFORTH and ANS figFORTH are two very
different products, and I don't see much conflicts between both. bigFORTH is a
platform oriented Forth (now for the Atari ST, a 386 version will follow), highly
optimized and really big (but not too big to teach a beginner). ANS figFORTH will
be much more portable, less optimized and (for the beginning) certainly smaller.
If it will grow like GNU C, I'll have to fear (because GNU C is really big and
highly optimized) a bit (but I can live with a GNU like sponsoring, can't I :-).

I'm a perfectionist, so if the product isn't really good, I'll trash it (or
improve it).
-- 
Bernd Paysan
"Keep it stupid simple!"
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: ANS TC Magnet for ROMability
Date: 22 Aug 92 13:27:02 GMT
Organization: EIEI-U

Category 10,  Topic 22
Message 76        Fri Aug 21, 1992
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 22:45 EDT
 
(split for Forthnet, part 2 of 2)

QUESTIONS:  Please answer the following:

  1. Is Section 1, "Scope, Purpose, and Content," a normative
     section or an informative section?

  2. Is the dpANS a specification of an abstract language Forth,
     or a specification of the behavior of Forth systems?

  3. Are cross-compilers considered within the scope of the
     dpANS?  If not, at what time does the Committee expect to
     consider the question of cross-compilers?

  4. Can a cross-compiler be an ANS Forth Standard System?
     If so, what are the requirements for interpretive behavior?

  5. Which Forth words defined in the dpANS must be executable
     interpretively in a Standard System?

  6. To what extent must newly-defined Forth words, comprising a
     Standard Program, be executable interpretively in a Standard
     System?

  7. Which of the following are valid Standard Programs?

     a)   4 5 + .

     b)   : TEST  4 5 + . ;

     c)   : TEST  4 5 + . ;  TEST

     d)   4 CONSTANT FOUR   FOUR 5 + .

     e)   : SQR  DUP * ;  4 SQR CONSTANT FOO

     f)   : SQCON  DUP * CONSTANT ;   4 SQCON FOO

  8. Must a compiler be an ANS Forth Standard System to label
     itself "ANSI Standard"?

  9. Is the phrase "ANS Forth Cross Compiler" excluded by the
     labeling requirements of section 4.1?

 10. What penalties are imposed upon vendors who wrongfully label
     cross-compilers "ANSI Standard"?

 11. Is the Committee aware of any existing Forth cross-compilers
     that -- apart from new word definitions -- can meet the
     requirements of an ANS Forth Standard System?  If so, which?

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Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: What's WRONG with Forth?
Date: 12 Aug 92 11:50:30 GMT
Organization: EIEI-U

Category 2,  Topic 9
Message 82        Wed Aug 12, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 00:23 EDT
 
Regarding IC YANG's recent post about things missing in Forth and Dick
Miller's excellent reply...I'd like to heartily echo Dick's words, and urge
people that find themselves in the same situation to evaluate the commercial
offerings on the market.  Each serves a slightly different market, with
different collections of library functions, support, etc.  But if you look,
you can find what you want and need.
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: 1992 Developers Competition
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Date: 18 Aug 92 11:49:13 GMT
Organization: EIEI-U

Category 5,  Topic 14
Message 1         Tue Aug 18, 1992
E.RATHER [Elizabeth]         at 00:54 EDT
 
I received the following message, and though it might be of interest. The
competition has been going on for several years.  It looks pretty "DP
oriented" and somewhat outside the real-time/embedded arena in which many of
of excell, but it's an interesting challenge.

Sorry, can't post the referenced file, but Dennis or I could send it to any of
you who don't have CompuServ access.
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From: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Free Forth
Date: 14 Aug 92 13:27:32 GMT
Reply-To: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson, TX

Christopher Browne writes:
>
>Once in a while, there's a neat article in Communications of the ACM.
>This month, there's one that rags on "Object Oriented Programming."  It
>criticizes what IS one of the weaknesses; specifically, classes and
>inheritance. 

I've always agreed with more modular languages which let you break
up your namespace into managable pieces (Modula-2, extended Pascal),
and I think this is one of my real complaints about Forth.  Going the
full "OOP" route, though, can replace this problem with one of
inheritance tree managament.  As Christopher Browne mentioned, you
are forced into classifying everything in often unnatural ways.  And
having to rework an inheritance tree in mid-project can be a diaster.

To play devil's advocate, though, the simple view of Forth actually
works quite well in most cases, and separate vocabularies help things
a bit.  In any OOP or modular language you still have to remember
functions names and such.  You can make Forth seem more organized by 
using standard naming conventions or by manually grouping names together
by printing up a "namespace map" on paper if you really want some
asthetics.

--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
From: ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: ANS TC Magnet for ROMability
Date: 14 Aug 92 12:19:06 GMT
Organization: EIEI-U

Category 10,  Topic 22
Message 73        Thu Aug 13, 1992
B.RODRIGUEZ2 [Brad]          at 18:56 EDT
 
No, Elizabeth, "that someone" is the person who told me that problem X wasn't
a problem because it only occurred with cross-compilers. You know, and I know,
that ROMability will need to be addressed someday.  "That's a ROMability
issue" is no excuse not to fix something that is broken.  We shouldn't put
something in this dpANS that we can predict will cause problems in the next
dpANS.

Some TC members did in fact tell me at Rochester that they wanted to re-
examine ENVIRONMENT?, and I thank them most heartily.  In return, I'm just now
putting the finishing touches on constructive proposals to fix the problems. 
I hope the TC doesn't mind if I also submit a
  few propsals (and a request for clarification) on the subject of ROMability.

Brad Rodriguez
 B.RODRIGUEZ2 on GEnie   |   bradford@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
 So many projects....so little time.

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From: bilodeau@ikaria.ensmp.fr (Michel Bilodeau <bilodeau@cmm.ensmp.fr>)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Where can I get a forth for the TMS-34010
Date: 19 Aug 92 13:01:17 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Ecole des Mines

I am looking for a forth the the Graphic Processor from Texas
the 34010 or 34020. 

Thank you.

E-mail answer to:

bilodeau@cmm.ensmp.fr