Proposals for a future revision of ANS Forth

This docment contains some proposals I would make on a revision of ANS Forth. It is in no particular order, and incomplete (i.e., it does not contain all proposals, and some proposals are incomplete). If you have any comments (even just agreement or disagreement), mail them to me (anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at), and I'll incorporate them (with attributions, unless you prefer to remain anonymous).

Related to this are some ideas about establishing practice by proposing some extension and hoping that implementors will adopt it. The Scheme community has established such a process: SRFI. Python's PEPs have a similar goal, but seem to be more popular. A further step in that direction is the Forth RfD/CfV process.

There are several related efforts in the Forth community that are open to the public: Proposed ANS Forth Extensions; Some Commonly Used Forth Words; Word proposals on Sourceforge

Template

Title

Problem

Proposal

Typical Use

Remarks

Experience

Comments

Proposals by Anton Ertl

Proposals by others

Factored-out proposals

This section just makes sure that links continue to work.

Deferred Words

Factored out.

Source code position in files

Factored out.

EXCEPTION

Factored out.

restoration of the input source specification on THROW

Factored out.

Buffering clarification

Factored out.

Output redirection

Factored out.

CONST-DOES>

Factored out.

FAST-EXECUTE

Factored out.

One-time file loading

Factored out.
Anton Ertl