Re: What's right with FORTH and wrong with c.l.f.

Bruce McFarling wrote:

> On Apr 30, 5:14 pm, Richard Owlett <rowl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 
>>What do they have in common?
>>Someone else has compiled raw data. It's available in ASCII format.
>>That requires me to parse it.
>>I doubt anyone would claim string handling as a Forth forte.
> 
> 
> However, parsing data in ASCII format *is* a Forth forte.
> 
> Indeed, one reason that there are fewer string handling resources in
> Forth than in so many other languages is that for so many tasks that
> are viewed as "string handling tasks" in other languages, Forth has
> simpler, more direct ways to accomplish the objective, so there are
> fewer people who need that toolkit.

The more I think about my current pet project, that is very true.

Although the data is much more modern, its format reflects historical 
standard Hollerith cards.

P.S. very familiar with an 026
      dang it, only wanted to dup thru col 44 not 46


> 
> Then add on top the lack of a de facto library management standard,
> and on top of that the fact that for those who only need to do a
> specific, people with a distinct set of concrete string tasks can
> solve it from scratch with tools like those in TOOL2002. If that is
> auxiliary to their main task, then once its solved, they may rarely
> need to revisit it. So instead of investing the time and effort into
> learning and importing a general purpose string handling toolkit and
> than using 5% of it, they build a much simpler special purpose string
> handling toolkit and use 100% of it.