2023-10-16 11:08:12 <rendar      > has some old Forth a kind of macro concepts, like in Lisp?
2023-10-16 11:11:42 <GeDaMo      > https://www.atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Forth%20Macros
2023-10-16 12:04:22 <KipIngram   > rendar: In Forth's very early days its "definitions" worked more like macros - the system would just drill through the words on an interpreted line, and go interpret the contents of each.  That was recursive until it got down to primitives.
2023-10-16 12:04:39 <KipIngram   > In other words, nothing was actually "compiled" in those days - it was all kind of text-based.
2023-10-16 12:04:47 <KipIngram   > But that's really old stuff.
2023-10-16 12:04:52 <rendar      > yeah indeed
2023-10-16 12:05:22 <KipIngram   > I'm not familiar with a Forth that has what you'd call macros these days - compiled definitions do more or less the same job and do it with much higher performance.
2023-10-16 12:05:32 <rendar      > my Forth works basically only with strings, and some kind of bytecode to identify native builtin words
2023-10-16 12:05:56 <KipIngram   > But of everyone around here I may have the least familiarity with the "existing Forth flora and fauna."
2023-10-16 12:07:03 <KipIngram   > You can see some of this here - it's a self-published book Chuck wrote way back in the primitive days:
2023-10-16 12:07:05 <KipIngram   > http://forth.org/POL.pdf
2023-10-16 12:07:15 <rendar      > cool thanks
2023-10-16 12:08:21 <KipIngram   > Chuck was also a bit more of an "apologist" then than later on.  For example, he goes to some length in there to show how Forth can be used to parse infix arithmetic expressions.  He seemed to feel that "lack of infix" would be thought of as a weakness, and wanted to show how to get around it.
2023-10-16 12:08:32 <KipIngram   > Later on his attitude was more "you shouldn't want to do that."
2023-10-16 12:08:48 <KipIngram   > Guess we all get more obstinate as we age.
2023-10-16 12:08:56 <KipIngram   > Or more confident, or both.
2023-10-16 12:42:28 <rendar      > i guess that the postfix notation is great for parsing
2023-10-16 12:42:34 <rendar      > basically you don't have any parsing
2023-10-16 12:42:44 <rendar      > we can say that Forth is the only language without any syntax
2023-10-16 13:39:12 <KipIngram   > Yes, Forth "solves the problem" by mostly making the problem go away.
2023-10-16 13:40:00 <KipIngram   > And yeah, the "no syntax" claim is 99% true.  You do have things like IF ... THEN and BEGIN ... AGAIN, and I guess those qualify as "syntax."  But those really are corner cases - by and large it's syntax free.
2023-10-16 13:40:32 <KipIngram   > definition = : <name>  <words> ;
2023-10-16 13:40:37 <KipIngram   > That's also a touch of syntax.
2023-10-16 13:41:51 <KipIngram   > Gotta love this:
2023-10-16 13:41:53 <KipIngram   > https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03238-5
2023-10-16 13:42:23 <KipIngram   > People are using ChatGPT to write grant applications - one example is cited of cutting three days of writing work down to three hours.
2023-10-16 13:42:40 <KipIngram   > Opinions seem to vary from "that's horrible" to "so what?"
2023-10-16 13:43:03 <KipIngram   > I think the biggest problem with it is that you can't even be sure your grant application author even  knows what's in his application.
2023-10-16 13:43:35 <KipIngram   > This is just one more example of Pandora's box being open; we're never go in to be able to close it again now.
2023-10-16 13:43:58 <KipIngram   > Just think about how much English essay homework is no doubt being done with ChatGPT.
2023-10-16 13:44:41 <KipIngram   > You'd think, though, that defending against that should be easy - a teacher ought to be able to just shove some of a kid's paper into ChatGPT and have it TELL him or her whether ChatGPT wrote it or not.
2023-10-16 13:44:49 <KipIngram   > I'm sure it has a record of what it's written.
2023-10-16 13:57:18 <Zarutian_iPad> KipIngram: what was that thing, ah, yes Grammarly, that shows up to.
2023-10-16 14:09:05 <KipIngram   > Yes, I remember that I think.
2023-10-16 14:11:29 <KipIngram   > rendar: In that Chuck book I linked you to earlier, I do think the actual algorithm he describes for parsing infix is interesting in its own right - the technique probably has applications in other areas.
2023-10-16 14:12:04 <KipIngram   > Scattered around in there he mentions several little ideas that we don't normally see in Forth these days but nonetheless might have some utility from time to time.
2023-10-16 14:18:04 <KipIngram   > So, I decided to upgrade my telescope controller handset rather than piddle around with RS232.
2023-10-16 15:49:03 <KipIngram   > Wow - the humidity today is just 36%.  That's VERY low for Houston.
2023-10-16 16:37:51 <rendar      > KipIngram, thanks, very interesting inputs
2023-10-16 16:38:17 <rendar      > oh are you from Houston? it should be cool to live there :)
2023-10-16 16:53:14 <KipIngram   > Yes; I don't live literally in the city limits, but it's quite close by.
2023-10-16 16:53:24 <KipIngram   > It's got a lot of things to offer.
2023-10-16 17:47:23 <immibis     > the same humidity is a lower percentage when it's hotter, and it's the hottest on record for this time of year (a statement which has been true every day since june)
2023-10-16 18:21:09 <KipIngram   > We actually have finally gotten a cool spell.  I went to jog a couple of hours ago and it was 69 degrees.  It was a great run.
2023-10-16 18:21:53 <KipIngram   > A month ago I was dealing with 100 degree + temperatures and had to wear my little neck wrap ice pack and my cooling vest and the whole nine yards.
2023-10-16 18:22:13 <KipIngram   > Ten years ago or so I had a minor heat stroke one summer, and ever since I'm more sensitive to heat.
2023-10-16 18:28:37 <KipIngram   > I started trying to be regular about this exercise maybe two or three months ago, and before that I'd hardly done anything for years.  It was pretty hard there for a while.  I finally seem to have gotten fit enough now that I can kind of just go "knock it out" - I'm going to really try not to let it go again like I did.
2023-10-16 18:29:18 <KipIngram   > I've gotten into a three day on, one day off pattern, and every other day I move some weights around also.