Sub: Minutes of your RT Conference. Date: 04/14/88 Time: 22:33EDT Attendees: [[Gary] GARY-S] [[jax] VESTA] [J.T.SAVIDGE] Minutes: <[Gary] GARY-S> is here. <[Gary] GARY-S> Hey Leonard <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> Hi <[Gary] GARY-S> I may have to switch confusers - can you read this ? <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> yes <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> What is a confuser? <[Gary] GARY-S> Good - I'll just cook along till something hoppen <[Gary] GARY-S> That's my term for these megaswitch boxes we play with <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> <[Gary] GARY-S> Dennis is much busy on the road with FORTH Inc <[Gary] GARY-S> ga <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> I got a marvellous book, not about Forth . . . <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> Called the Portable Curmudgeon, by Jon Winokur . . . <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> Example: Oscar Levant says about Doris Day. . . <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> " I knew her before she was a virgin"ok <[Gary] GARY-S> haha <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> . <[Gary] GARY-S> ga <[Gary] GARY-S> Interestingly, this was also a day of... <[Gary] GARY-S> book purcahasing for me... <[Gary] GARY-S> but MUCHO MAS serious ! A two volume <[Gary] GARY-S> goodie fro MIT press by Rumelhart and McClelland... <[Gary] GARY-S> called 'Parallel Distributed Processing'... <[Gary] GARY-S> about 1200 pages of intro to neural nets... <[Gary] GARY-S> NOT light reading ! <[Gary] GARY-S> ga <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> With 1200 pages, it isn't light to carry around, either.:-) <[Gary] GARY-S> I went for the paper-back. <[Gary] GARY-S> no sweat <[Gary] GARY-S> ga <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> When I retired, I thought I would have a lot <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> of time to catch up on <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> the deep stuff. . . <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> But I seem too busy. I want to try to apply <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> Dick Pountain's Object Oriented Forth. <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> He writes well, & isn't hard to understand, <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> but it isn't easy to try to apply it to a practical <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> application. <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> . <[Gary] GARY-S> GREAT BOOK - I highly recommend ! <[Gary] GARY-S> I did a mini-revue on it on the BBS... <[Gary] GARY-S> I like his writing anyway, so my opinion is really opinion. <[Gary] GARY-S> ga <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> Have you actually used it? <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> . <[Gary] GARY-S> Some - but nothing I want to post <[Gary] GARY-S> ga <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> What did you use it for? <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> . <[Gary] GARY-S> Just playing with the ideas ... <[Gary] GARY-S> Between it and Townsend's book you get a real twist... is here. <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> Is that JAX <[jax] VESTA> you bet! woof! <[Gary] GARY-S> on programming in logic. I liked the exercise, but don't forsee doing anything real with it. <[Gary] GARY-S> hey Jax <[jax] VESTA> @@@! <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> <[Gary] GARY-S> Talking OO Forth <[Gary] GARY-S> ga Leonard <[jax] VESTA> ...? <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> Jax, have you used Pountain's Object Oriented Forth <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> for anything practical? <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> . <[jax] VESTA> <[Gary] GARY-S> ga Jax <[jax] VESTA> Have JFORTH ... <[jax] VESTA> which has obj oriented extension ODE ... <[jax] VESTA> example is JAXBOXES.SRC in FIG lib here on GEnie. <[jax] VESTA> . <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> <[Gary] GARY-S> have you read Pountain's or Townsends stuff ? I like <[Gary] GARY-S> ga len <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> JForth runs on the Mac, is that correct? <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> . <[jax] VESTA> Amiga. <[jax] VESTA> . <[Gary] GARY-S> ga jax <[jax] VESTA> JForth ... <[jax] VESTA> is 32 bit JSR Forth ... <[jax] VESTA> ODE is fab extension .... <[jax] VESTA> helped me grok Object Oriented ... <[jax] VESTA> which is very nice for many types of projects ... <[Gary] GARY-S> ie: <[jax] VESTA> and probably would be useful for implementing a constraint-resolut ion ... <[jax] VESTA> type of PROLOG in FORTH . <[jax] VESTA> . <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> <[Gary] GARY-S> besides boxes have you done anything '(real' ? <[Gary] GARY-S> ga leonard <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> pmi (pardon my ignorance <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> what is fab extension? <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> . <[jax] VESTA> <[Gary] GARY-S> ga jax <[jax] VESTA> Meant " a fabulous extension" to JForth...objects in FORTH. Foo to C! <[jax] VESTA> . <[Gary] GARY-S> what about my 'real' ?? <[Gary] GARY-S> ga <[jax] VESTA> Well, depends on what you call "real" .... <[jax] VESTA> jax believes in low-overhead data objects ... <[jax] VESTA> which are useful and re-useable time and time again ... <[jax] VESTA> am not so sure that the concept of "inheritance" is so profound in FORTH ... <[jax] VESTA> since the compiler in FORTH is infinitely extensible already ... <[jax] VESTA> so my tastes run to the type of object characterised in my files . .. <[jax] VESTA> DIMARRAY.SRC and DIMLIMS.SRC in which ... <[jax] VESTA> the data objects are _seperate_ from the array index limits check. .. <[jax] VESTA> allowing the programmer to optionally dispense with the overhead . .. <[jax] VESTA> of the limits check in cases where it is just a waste of time... <[jax] VESTA> above mentioned files also in FIG libraray ...[A <[jax] VESTA> though you have to be careful with jaxfiles since his amiga ... <[jax] VESTA> does not automatically append carriage returns to every line ... <[jax] VESTA> so look for the ones that say they have 's if you are using a MSDOS box. <[jax] VESTA> . <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> <[Gary] GARY-S> ga len <[Gary] GARY-S> <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> But isn't that just good programming practice? , , , <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> I always write things like arrays, etc... <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> asthat assume that the stack is correct. If checking. . . <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> is noeeded, then it should be a separate Forth word <[leonard] NMORGENSTERN> . <[jax] VESTA> <[Gary] GARY-S> setting ranges and idiot proofing is checks - true <[Gary] GARY-S> ga jax <[jax] VESTA> I agree ... but we may have ... <[jax] VESTA> confused two issues here ... <[jax] VESTA> The main point of object oriented ... <[jax] VESTA> is not limits-checking perse ... <[jax] VESTA> but the concept of relieving the programmer ... <[jax] VESTA> of some of the effort of differentiating between the handling ... <[jax] VESTA> of data objects of different sizes and types _explicitly_ ...[A <[jax] VESTA> These "smart arrays" ... <[jax] VESTA> know alot about themselves and can respond to the same messages ..