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Re: [colorforth] Re-connecting

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005, Dr Nick Maroudas wrote:


On Wed, 2005-02-23 at 06:02, Terry Loveall wrote:


On Tue, 22 Feb 2005 22:12:28 -0500 (EST)
Mark Slicker <maslicke@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

(snip)
My critique of hierarchical file systems is that they put too much burden
on the user, to give each file a name and place within the hierarchy. Also
they are not very general or flexible. I think the system could be much
more active in recording information about data objects, and the system
could make this information available in a general way to applications.



To which Terry (I presume it was Terry at this point) replied:

Forth, with a nested vocabulary structure, can provide the basis for
'attribute typed' data storage. The basic managed 'physical' tree structure is
provided by the vocabulary nesting.
Is there some online reference for the nested Forth vocabulary? I have some touble understanding the techniques described below, how the search is performed, ect. 


Nick here:
How about start simple with the CF list, which is not large but
already gives me - and Google! - trouble, trying to find who said
what when & where?  I think Forth could easily do:

1. A "passive" program that reads the complete list (plus incoming
   messages) but only to store the lot as plain text documents in a
single folder, filed by date in an "archival stratum" - to be searched
but never to have its temporal order disturbed.

2. An "active" program that reads 1. and "digests" it, by compiling
   words whose initial definitions would be date of first appearance :
 : word#n   date sender thread keywords ;
Subsequent appearances would make use of Forth's ability to redefine
a word by a link to the previous definition of that same word :
 : word#n   newdate sender thread keywords word#n ;
Names of senders would of course also be words - important keywords.
Keywords could be selected either by native human intelligence or
by a numerical filter e.g., from among all the words in the message
to select any that are new or uncommon, plus a few that are already
in the dictionary.  The new words of course would have to be added
as soon as they were read - otherwise could not be used as keywords
for the message in which they first appeared:
 : newword  date sender thread ;
This digest of words with dates would be used to help search 1.

Most long words can be handled by most Forths, with their width of 31
characters, but CF users might need to watch out; I seem to remember
reporting (when?) a confusion by truncation of the end character from
two words which I had carelessly called Longword#1 and Sameword#2.

Regards
Nick




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