New Forth Website
Alfred
http://www.forthwiki.com
Cross posting, sorry if you get multiple copies.
The site is based on TikiWiki so it combines the all the goodness of Wikipedia,
forthlinks.com, the FAQ sites, book review sites, etc. You can also upload files
to the public or your own private gallery, create a blog, plus lots more. It is
also multilingual so you can use the site in any of 35 languages.
There is no paid advertising on the site and I make no money from it, but feel
free to promote your company, application, compiler, etc. And if you can, please
link to www.forthwiki.com from your site.
Not much there yet, but as I say on the home page, This site is by and for the
Forth community so it is whatever you make it.
Thanks for reading
Alfred
rickman
> http://www.forthwiki.com
>
> Cross posting, sorry if you get multiple copies.
>
> The site is based on TikiWiki so it combines the all the goodness of Wikipedia,
> forthlinks.com, the FAQ sites, book review sites, etc. You can also upload files
> to the public or your own private gallery, create a blog, plus lots more. It is
> also multilingual so you can use the site in any of 35 languages.
>
> There is no paid advertising on the site and I make no money from it, but feel
> free to promote your company, application, compiler, etc. And if you can, please
>
> Not much there yet, but as I say on the home page, This site is by and for the
> Forth community so it is whatever you make it.
>
> Thanks for reading
> Alfred
Is this a joke???
Rick
Hans Hübner
> Is this a joke???
Kind of. I particularily like the link titled "Forth Worth" on that
page. Heh.
Bernd Paysan
Looks like SPAM from a domain grabber. If you want a real Forth Wiki,
here's one:
--
Bernd Paysan
"If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself"
http://www.jwdt.com/~paysan/
John Passaniti
> Is this a joke???
Yes, it is a joke that just a handful of people spend their time,
money, and effort trying to set up sites to promote Forth. There
should be more.
I've never been a fan of the "if you build it, they will come"
mentality that says if you build a web site, people will flock to it
and magically populate it with content. I'm even less of a fan of
setting up such sites with placeholder content (in this case, blank
pages with provocative names like "Chuck Moore"). It's the equivalent
of someone setting up forum software, creating dozens of discussion
areas, each with nothing in them. The intent is obvious-- the
creators of those sites want to form a framework for the site to grow
from. But more often, it has the opposite effect-- people visit the
site, see no actual content, get bored, and never come back. A better
approach is to gather a handful of prolific writers to put significant
content on the site first, and then announce it to the public.
I also have some problems with the quality of the content that's on
there. There is the bizarre suggestion that Forth programs evolve but
C programs don't-- that they are "complicated from the beginning"--
suggests someone who hasn't done significant C work (or who does, but
does so *badly*). Equally weird is the notion that in Forth, a word
has singular meaning (ignoring that the programmer can freely change
meaning) and thus the language is "finite." This then blends into a
statement that in C, there are an infinite number of possible
statements. That's obviously wrong-- the C compiler only allows a
limited subset of them, and the rules are quite well defined. But
presumably the person who wrote that statement apparently doesn't
understand the rules of C to know that while a symbol like "*" can
have multiple meanings, those meanings are easily understood in
context. It's no different from in English how a word like "set" can
have dozens of meanings, but when I say, "set this on the table" or
"is this part of the set" or "wait for the Jello to set" there is no
ambiguity because of context.
So I have problems with the form and the quality of content of the
site. But even so, I applaud the site's creator for the effort and
hope it inspires more people to do the same (or actually, better).
Here are three simple ideas that might inspire others:
1. Set up a wiki (or for wiki's that allow hierarchy, a section
within the wiki) where each word of the ANS and other significant
Forth standards are given their own page. Divide up that page
according to standard, and for each provide stack pictures and
descriptions of the word. Then, have a section for each word where
notes and discussion about usage, history, warnings, and other
suggestions are provided. Finally, provide that from a consistent URL
so that Forth development environments can consistently reference it
using a syntax like "about X" where "X" is the word you're interested
in.
2. Encourage Forth vendors and significant community members to
actively blog about Forth. Then, set up a "planet" RSS aggregator
where people can go to quickly summarize what's new in the world of
Forth.
3. Someone take on the role of summarizing what is current. For
example, every month in "Linux Journal" I look forward to the "diff -
u" column which is a summary of Linux kernel developments. That
column is short, refrains from too much of the author injecting their
own commentary, and provides a way to know what is going on without
having to constantly monitor hundreds of conversations across kernel
development. For Forth, that would mean monitoring comp.lang.forth,
pinging vendors for developments, monitoring standards discussions,
etc. The key is a (largely) dispassionate summarization.
Hugh Aguilar
> Is this a joke???
I encourage Alfred to ignore all of these put-downs from the C.L.F.
crowd. Here on C.L.F. nobody ever posts code except an occasional
small snippet, but the emphasis seems to be on putting other people
down. By comparison, Alfred's site allows people to upload programs.
Considering that programming supposedly involves writing programs,
this emphasis on actual programs makes his site significantly more
useful than C.L.F..
I have uploaded my slide-rule program to his site and have also set up
a forum devoted to supporting this program. My novice package is also
available over there. I hope that people can focus on actual
programming over there, as an alternative to this nest of vipers that
C.L.F. has become.
Richard Owlett
Persecution complex?
Brad
> By comparison, Alfred's site allows people to upload programs.
> Considering that programming supposedly involves writing programs,
> this emphasis on actual programs makes his site significantly more
> useful than C.L.F.
MPE is hosting such a site (called FLAG) which was recently announced
and looks like they put some work into it. There's also the
forthfreaks wiki. So throwing together a wiki/blog site and announcing
it here isn't likely to impress. Maybe if you searched the net looking
for good Forth code, collected it, categorized it, got permissions and
hosted it in one place, that would be useful. Kind of like putting out
food for the cats.
> this nest of vipers that C.L.F. has become.
I drive a Volkswagen.
Steve
going to post if "Anyone want a forth wiki" over at clf and found
this thread by accident. Many people talk about multiple different
techniques and alternatives, but all that will get lost in the group
over time. So a hierarchial structure of articles covering every
technique, and forth language structural alternative, and articles by
experts only, would be great for new comers and the community to read
and learn more, or just to keep track. Simple hierarchial entries of
what it is why is it significant and how does it work etc, for each
concept.
Where ever the place for it is at your old wiki, forthfreak, figforth
or forth.org, I leave that up to you guys. If you want to do
something like what I've suggested, it might pay to nicely ask all
the principles (Stephen, Liz, all the authors of the big forth
versions, Chuck maybe, and the principle standards members and
principle figforth members) to be the content contributors. An
encyclopedia of Forth.
Alfred thanks for your effort.
Steve.
Paul Rubin
> http://www.forthwiki.com
> Cross posting, sorry if you get multiple copies.
purpose of another Forth wiki?
Elizabeth D. Rather
slide rule code, as that's all that's posted there.
Cheers,
Elizabeth
--
==================================================
Elizabeth D. Rather (US & Canada) 800-55-FORTH
FORTH Inc. +1 310.999.6784
5959 West Century Blvd. Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90045
http://www.forth.com
"Forth-based products and Services for real-time
applications since 1973."
==================================================
Steve
maybe it is better to think about some of the ideas here about what
more could be done with such a site?
I'm trying a few newsreaders here and I am not getting this to come
up in the better one in clf. So I might miss the conversation in clf
if anybody replies, sorry.
Steve.
rickman
> On 6/7/13 8:22 AM, Paul Rubin wrote:
>> Alfred <alfr...@REMOVETHISforthwiki.com> writes:
>>> http://www.forthwiki.com
>>> Cross posting, sorry if you get multiple copies.
>>
>> There is already Forthfreak.net which is pretty good. What is the
>> purpose of another Forth wiki?
>>
>
> It appears to be mainly a showcase for Hugh Aguilar's Novice package and
> slide rule code, as that's all that's posted there.
even see the slide rule project. I do see a lot of other potentially
useful info though. I know this thread is pretty old and I don't see
most of it. Did I miss something? Or maybe I missed a lot of things...
I usually do. lol
--
Rick
Elizabeth D Rather
Steve
about.
I saw some confusing posts earlier that said it had 'forth worth' on
the front page, like a domain spam holder, but I can't find any thing
like this, and the posts disappeared.
Steve.
Paul Rubin
>> There is already Forthfreak.net which is pretty good. What is the
>> purpose of another Forth wiki?
> I like Forthfreak, but it dies not go into the detail I was talking
> about.
Forth pages. Why would anyone think making yet another site with almost
no content is going to help?
Steve
an forth encyclopedia, it needs a hundred times more information and
direction to technical break downs of the hundreds, if not thousands,
of concepts going around here and in standards considerations, to
have a repository of technique and customisations out there. At
least forth wiki is called forthwiki. As to no content, hence my
idea, that the principle people of forth could contribute their vast
understanding to building such a resource, like technical manual to
all things forth. For the life of the language left, such a thing
would be handy for novice and expert a like.
Steve.
rickman
> On 6/7/2013 1:09 PM, rickman wrote:
>> On 6/7/2013 2:49 PM, Elizabeth D. Rather wrote:
>>> On 6/7/13 8:22 AM, Paul Rubin wrote:
>>>> Alfred <alfr...@REMOVETHISforthwiki.com> writes:
>>>>> http://www.forthwiki.com
>>>>> Cross posting, sorry if you get multiple copies.
>>>>
>>>> There is already Forthfreak.net which is pretty good. What is the
>>>> purpose of another Forth wiki?
>>>>
>>>
>>> It appears to be mainly a showcase for Hugh Aguilar's Novice package and
>>> slide rule code, as that's all that's posted there.
>>
>> Am I missing something? I looked around at Forthfreak.net and I don't
>> even see the slide rule project. I do see a lot of other potentially
>> useful info though. I know this thread is pretty old and I don't see
>> most of it. Did I miss something? Or maybe I missed a lot of things...
>> I usually do. lol
>>
>
> No, not Forthfreak.net, the Forth wiki linked at the top.
rule project. The list of pages doesn't show anything about the slide
rull project. Not much at all in fact, but that's the point, it is just
getting started. Lots of blank pages to fill in...
--
Rick
Paul Rubin
> There is a lot less at forthwiki.com, but I still don't see the slide
> rule project. The list of pages doesn't show anything about the slide
> rull project.
rickman
why Miss E would not be very enthused to see it at all. Huge is a bit
insane when it comes to Forth Inc and herself.
God, sometimes I wonder what it says about me that I post here... Am I
as crazy as the rest of you?
--
Rick
Elizabeth D. Rather
for "newbies". However, on close inspection, none of Hugh's code is
actually there, just posts from him encouraging people to try it and
discuss.
Cheers,
Elizabeth