From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,2ab6d5d5611e1f07,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Bob Crispen Subject: Real Embedded Programmers Write Forth on VMS Date: 1996/03/19 Message-ID: <9603191707.AA02058@eight-ball>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 143239055 sender: Ada programming language comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1996-03-19T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Robert Dewar >Bob Crispen wrote > >">|> What I'm shocked at is that Ada stopped at 16! How hard would it have >>|> been to permit *any* numeric base? Anyone who's ever written a Forth >>|> compiler knows how simple it is, and how useful things like base-36 >>|> encoding can be. How many encoding/decoding routines have been written >>|> that could have been obviated by making the compiler do this work?" > >Sure, 35#abfg_ywww# -- what a wonderful addition to a language which >is intended to be easily readable :-) Unless'n of course the problem domain is expressed that way ;-) Mind you, apart from the cute trick of encoding alphanumeric characters as digits (which is wholly a solution domain affair), I'm not sure there is any real use for base > 16, but that could simply be lack of imagination this morning. In Forth it was quite common for authors of Forth systems to put their names encoded in base 36 into a variable from which the reference had been removed. ----- "Byron B. Kauffman" sez: >I realize making this statement may disqualify me from ever deserving >the official title of 'Mr. Embedded Software Engineer', but I guess I >just got spoiled by DEC, because I'm having a really hard time getting >used to the overall 'hackiness' of the UNIX way of life and the fact >that that same philosophy permeates the UNIX Ada products I've been >exposed to (admittedly, a short list). Funny, I'd been working on Telesoft, Alsys and Verdix for not all that much longer than that, and when I had to do a port of a system to DEC I found it to be a toy, incapable of supporting serious projects. How on earth you ever managed to connect all the directories in that flat file system using only those ludicrous DEC tools amazes me. And I was considerably less than charmed about having to change the file names. I think that's about an even exchange, proving only that people like what they're used to. Bob Crispen revbob@eight-ball.hv.boeing.com Speaking for myself, not my company, who would probably keel over if they found out I knew anything about Forth