Best of GEnie..... May 1989 News from the GEnie Forth RoundTable by Gary Smith As promised in this column last issue I will continue the speakers' synopsis with conferences featuring George Shaw, Mike Perry, Randy Dumse and Wil Baden. As in previous installments, I will feature the guests' remarks for their respective conferences. These remarks are intended to set the tone and direction of the conference, and they serve that purpose well. I hope most readers will note they also serve to acquaint the attendees of the conference, and now the readers of this column, with the guests' personal philosophies. This is no accident. When I have approached a prospective guest I have always asked what they wish to talk about. What is their personal point of wisdom they wish to share ? Without exception, those who have accepted the invitation have also accepted the opportunity to share their personal point of view - as opposed to some general subject. It is clear we all benefit from this unselfishness. I again wish to thank all these gracious people for sharing, as they have, their insight. Now, on to the recaps. George Shaw Owner, Shaw Laboratories Topic : 'SigForth ACM' December 1988 <[George] PRESS20> We, (myself and others) started the ACM SIG to bring Forth into the professional computing arena. ACM is very visable in the universities and colleges and is very well respected around the world. We felt that having a SIG would give Forth a large boost in image as a language for serious use by professionals. Thanks to Alan Furman for starting the whole thing and analyzing the situation to give us direction and goals. I have a list of our initial projects : Education: Moving Forth into the universities and colleges to create an awareness of Forth and a better supply of Forth programmers. "Forthics": Research to create a basic set of Forth programming ethics as well as management metrics to increase the success of Forth projects. Market: a study of the job requirements and the Forth programming skills available to determine trends in the Forth job marketplace and skills required for the future. Successes/Failures: a study of the historical applications of Forth to create an awareness of Forth's wide spread use and to determine what the characteristics and causes are for successes and failures. ANS Forth: participate through your SIGForth representative in the ANSForth committee to produce an American National Standard for Forth that everyone can use. State of the Industry: SIGForth periodically compiles surveys of the Forth industry to evaluate the status of the Forth product market, job market, workplace, education availability, job requirements etc. Participate in these surveys and be one of the first to reap their benefits through their publication in the SIGForth newsletter. Mike Perry Owner of Even-Odd Designs Topic: 'Public Domain Forth and Open Systems' January 1989 <[mike] PRESS4> I have benefitted enormously from the work of many other people. I have come to believe strongly in the value of open systems. I want, and even need, to have complete control over my tools. Sharing code and avoiding secrets are essential for productivity. I am convinced that Forth will continue to be interesting because so many new techniques and ideas are explored here and that is possible in large part because we share our code and ideas. Remember, we will only lose control of our machines if we give it away. Randy Dumse Owner of New Micros Inc. Topic: 'Forth as a Standalone O/S' February 1989 <[DUMSE] PRESS5> Being somewhat isolated here in Texas has its disadvantages. The availability of other informed people to "bounce ideas off of" is limited, so most of my opportunities for such interaction occurs at most twice a year: at FORLM or Rochester. On the other hand, not having any one to give guided direction to your thinking can allow original thought to take some interesting directions. How useful these thought are often can not be determined by the originator. It's a little like the male complex where no baby is ever pretty - until it's his own! So it is with ideas. They are much like the only child a male can bare - and therefore look pretty darn cute to dada. It can be a bit hard to be objective when there is that feeling of self investment in the thoughts. There isn't even a mother on which to blame half the genes. So with those thoughts, I begin: Forth as a Stand Alone Operating System Both the R65F11 and F68HC11 single chip computers have been designed as stand alone computer systems. They use Forth as their operating system. In this regard they follow in the tradition of micros like the KIM-1, SYM-1 and the AIM-65. Each of these had a buit in monitor to allow user interaction with the system. Similarly, other systems used BASIC as their power on operating system, such as the (if my memory serves) OSI, TRS-80 and Apple. ... Something to keep in mind, "operating system" hasn't always meant "disk operating system". ... As most of us have heard, Forth is nearly its own operating system. In fact it is often stated that Forth is difficult to install under an existing operating system because it is not well behaved. These comments really have nothing to do with Forth as a general language, but come out of the difficulty of doing blocks under another OS. Wil Baden Owner, Paleotaurus, Inc. Topic : 'Must Forth be Write-Only ?' March 1989 <[Wil] PRESS19> Let's stop kidding ourselves. Forth deserves its reputation as a "write-only: language. 99 percent of Forth programs published prove this. Until Forth improves its reputation, it will be SCORNED. Tonight I want to investigate the evil forces that cause this and discuss six necessary but insufficient rules for more readable programs. ... 1. The stack state must be given for every line. 2. Formatting must show logical structure. .. 3. Use short definitions, short lines, short phrases. 4. Don't mumble -- your program should pass your spelling checker. 5. Mix upper and lower case -- all lower case is just as bad as all upper. 6. Write comments in the English language. Are there better rules? What else must be done? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - If you are grinding your teeth and wishing you had participated in one of these terrific guest conferences, all is not lost. The immediacey is lost forever, but the words remain for you to capture and study at your leisure. They are posted in the GEnie Forth RoundTable Library, Library 1. If you would like to suggest an interesting guest, please leave me e-mail ( posted to GARY-S ) on GEnie, ( gars on Wetware and the Well ,) or send me a note via U. S. mail. I also encourage anyone who feels he/she has a message to share to contact me via the above or FIG offices.