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From: Krishna Myneni <krishna.myneni@ccreweb.org>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: 0 SET-ORDER why?
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2024 20:17:23 -0500
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On 7/2/24 08:42, Ruvim wrote:
> On 2024-07-01 14:13, Krishna Myneni wrote:
>> On 7/1/24 04:02, Ruvim wrote:
>>> On 2024-07-01 05:49, Krishna Myneni wrote:
....
>> I wonder if the original proposal for SET-ORDER meant to say "minimal" 
>> instead of "minimum", for argument -1, thereby leading to the 
>> inference that the words FORTH-WORDLIST and SET-ORDER always be 
>> present in the search order. We need to check where else in the 
>> standard the term "minimum search order" appears.
> 
> In Forth-94:
> 
>    <http://lars.nocrew.org/dpans/dpans16.htm>
>    <http://lars.nocrew.org/dpans/dpansa16.htm>
>    <http://lars.nocrew.org/dpans/a0002.htm>
> 
> 
>>
>> For the specification of SET-ORDER with argument -1 replacing 
>> "minimum" with "minimal" would avoid some confusion.
> 
> Wiktionary says that they are synonyms:
> <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/minimum#Adjective>
> 

That seems to be the case with the Oxford dictionary as well. My 
understanding of minimum is the smallest possible, and minimal implies a 
small size (but not necessarily the smallest).

So, who knows what they were thinking when the standard was written 
because the clear statement that "the minimum search order shall include 
the words ...", which appears in the spec for SET-ORDER and for ONLY 
clears contradicts the allowance for 0 SET-ORDER.

The language needs to be fixed.

I remember when I was implementing the Search Order word set in kForth, 
the phrase "the minimum search order shall include the words ..." but 
the contradiction with 0 SET-ORDER didn't register with me at the time.

--
Krishna