[ColorForth] ColorForth colaboration (Re: Let's talk philosophy)

[Roger Ivie <IVIE@xxxxxxxxxx>]

John Drake said:
> --- Roger Ivie <IVIE@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > I don't mean to be rude, but that's precisely the
> > sort of thinking that
> > gave us the large ANS vocabulary. I'm not interested
> > in other people's
> > code because it doesn't solve my problem. For me to
> > have useful code, I
> > have to invent it so I know what it does and why it
> > works that way.
> 
> For all of the talk about Chuck being "anti-library",

I didn't realize I was putting words in Chuck's mouth...

> notice the list of things he'd like to see coded
> for colorForth:
> 
> http://www.colorforth.com/status.html
> 
> The list includes USB drivers, JPEG, PNG, TCP/IP
> ect.  

OK, I'll agree that I was being utopian and that collecting useful
working libraries isn't a bad thing.

In an ideal world, I would only use code that I understand very
well. Typically, this is code that I've written; since I've written
it, I know how it works and why it works that way.

Since I don't have infinite time, I have to at some point rely on
code written by others. I didn't write the telnet app I'm using to
type this message, nor did I write the operating system and mail
utilities my mail host depends on. This means my understanding of
both is limited. While I would _prefer_ to fully understand them,
I can't.

And since I'm not omniscient, I often forget how stuff that I've
written has worked. This means even my own stuff becomes
a mass of scary code that depends on other things that I'm afraid
to mess with because I don't know what'll break. But at least with
my own stuff I have the confidence that I _used_ to understand how
it worked, and so presumably can do so again...

Heck, if I were omniscient I wouldn't be hanging out here mining for
good ideas; I would already know how things _should_ work, so I
wouldn't have to see what you folks are up to.

Also, since I'm not doing much Real Work(TM) in Forth, this is pretty
much what I do for fun. So I can afford to be persnickety about it.

I guess the short summary is that I'll readily admit my rantings are
those of a deranged lunatic that should be given the appropriate
amount of attention.
-- 
Roger Ivie
ivie@xxxxxxxxxx
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