Minutes of our 6 Oct 1988 RT Conference with special guest, Larry Forsley Larry's topic was 'Forth and the Future' Attendees: [[Gary] GARY-S] [[larry] PRESS9] [[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN] [D.MILEY] [[len] NMORGENSTERN] [[Rich] R.FRANZEN] [SKY-KIMBALL] [[John] J.SCHOFFXX] [[JAX] VESTA] Minutes: is here. <[Gary] GARY-S> Welcome Larry is here. <[Gary] GARY-S> Dave, how's Austin ? <[larry] PRESS9> hello all <[larry] PRESS9> ga <[Gary] GARY-S> any last questions, larry ? <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Verah nice. Pleasant, cool, nice weather. Had a class meet in a cafe today instad of a building. Have an enormous amount of quant um mech to do... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Larry...do you have any idea why UT Austin has not receive its issues of JFAR recently? <[larry] PRESS9> I liked Mitch's RT <[larry] PRESS9> ga <[larry] PRESS9> !! <[Gary] GARY-S> we're free-wheeling right now, larry ... <[Gary] GARY-S> what would you like to know ? <[larry] PRESS9> Dave, did they or didn't they <[larry] PRESS9> ...reveive it? <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> They haven't. <[larry] PRESS9> Through what issue? <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Or not recently. The last one they have has the 1987 Rochester Conference abstracts and reports. <[larry] PRESS9> That's the last one. We're about to go to press... <[larry] PRESS9> with V 2... <[larry] PRESS9> the "virtues" of electronic publishing... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Oh. Ok. I need my Forth fix. <[larry] PRESS9> are slowing us down!... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> I did just find a copy of Object Oriented Forth though. It's brilliant. <[larry] PRESS9> 88 Conf proc is separate from JFAR this year. <[larry] PRESS9> It has problems. <[larry] PRESS9> See my technical article correcting them... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Will you be at the ACM SigFORTH conference here in Austin? <[larry] PRESS9> in in JFAR <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Which issue. The upcoming one? <[larry] PRESS9> I don't know yet. Maybe I'lll be invited down? <[larry] PRESS9> Yes V II <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> I'll look forward to it. <[larry] PRESS9> greate. <[larry] PRESS9> A funny story about Pountain's work... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> We need papers for the ACM conf. The call for papers should be out real soon now... <[Gary] GARY-S> Just Dave here right now Larry - all right if we wait a few before starting ? <[larry] PRESS9> In trying to make it transportable he confused... <[larry] PRESS9> sure <[larry] PRESS9> vocabulary linking structure with the vocabulary words... <[larry] PRESS9> He wrongly chose linking structure. I discovered this when I <[larry] PRESS9> taught with the book 15 months ago... Solution. <[larry] PRESS9> rewrite his object words and in the process use vocabulary in the... <[larry] PRESS9> defining portion rather than create. this causes the entire vocabulary <[larry] PRESS9> mechanism to remain hidden, and transportable. <[larry] PRESS9> ga <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> What we need are a standard way of using the Forth compiler subsections, name fields, cfas, and links... <[larry] PRESS9> True. I think that this winter, time permitting, I will look again... <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> How to manipulate the dictionary structures in an implementation independent manner <[larry] PRESS9> at what Dick did and what I wrote in 1981. <[larry] PRESS9> Implementation independence is crucial for teaching and usage. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Yes. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Absolutely <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> So many of the more elegant uses of Forth involve rewriting some or all of the ZForth low levels...and we need a standard way to manipulate things, look up words, create things, modify cfas, hide words, etc <[larry] PRESS9> Dave, how's the quantum fluctuation. <[larry] PRESS9> I have proposed a project called common Forth, modeled on common... <[larry] PRESS9> LISP. It would begin with the ANSI standard and would... is here. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> You mean the course? Eh. Not hard. Just tedious. And the tests have 2 problems more on them than time permits. All we're doing no w is Hueckel theory. <[larry] PRESS9> give us what I think you're looking for. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Oh. You were talking about something else. (grin) <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Common Forth. I like the idea. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Needs to be fairly large. <[larry] PRESS9> an uncommon idea for the uncommon wo(man) <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> That is...strings, floats, etc <[larry] PRESS9> or, the capability of having them. <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> And lots of documentation. My pet peeve is a Forth which doesn't give me the data structures, the innards, the *source* <[larry] PRESS9> one must have guts. <[larry] PRESS9> That may be the downfall (and the saving grace)... <[larry] PRESS9> of UNIX. <[Gary] GARY-S> well - we better start and let the stragglers fill the gap - ok Larry <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> Unix is my cash flow. <[larry] PRESS9> But the hackers always are superceded, or <[larry] PRESS9> at least outnumbered. <[larry] PRESS9> right Gary. <[Gary] GARY-S> no more interweaving - this is formal <[Gary] GARY-S> do you know how to request permission D.M.? <[Dave] DHWEINSTEIN> (Hates formal anything. I live in jeans and tt-shirts) <[Gary] GARY-S> ga d,m ok, I'm just watching <[Gary] GARY-S> If you want to speak type !! , I will keep a list and tell you..