Re: 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 <[email protected]> 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
>