Re: Avoid treating the stack as an array [Re: "Back & Forth" is back!]

On 10/09/2024 9:26 pm, Paul Rubin wrote:

Hans Bezemer <the.beez.speaks@gmail.com> writes:

What bothers me most technologically is that parameters flow through
the stack undisturbed. You break that paradigm when using locals. With
locals you *HAVE TO* create some kind of stack frame that you have to
destroy when you exit.

 
Forth programs very frequently end up juggling parameters and other data
to and from the return stack, instead of using locals.  Simple
implementations of locals put them in the return stack too.
"Destroying" the stack frame just means adjusting RP when the function
exits.  Usually a single instruction.
...

In forth the programmer uses the return stack as a temporary holder.  Not
so locals which spill all input to the return stack and then shuffle these
to/from the parameter stack.  The latter is akin to a novice programmer who
uses too many variables.