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From: ForthNet@willett.UUCP (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth Implementation
Message-ID: <677.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 19 Mar 90 02:52:33 GMT
Organization: Latest link in the ForthNet chain.  (Pgh, PA)
Lines: 31

Category 3,  Topic 24
Message 54        Sun Mar 18, 1990
R.BERKEY [Robert]            at 07:07 PST
 
 Re: Undetected out-of-range branches

Frank Sergeant writes, 900311:

 >    I guess you lay down a 1-byte branch except when ?FOR & NEXT
 > are  far enough apart to require a 2-byte branch.  I've got to
 > consider that  for all my branches.  I hate the added complexity
 > for the compiler (&  for SEE).

The one-byte branch is something inherited in code over ten years old now. 
And no, there are no two-byte branches.  Also inherited were three out-of-
range branches in shipped code.

If anything, the monster problem as I see it with one-byte branches is
compilers and assemblers without range checking.  Consider that an out-of-
range branch is a problem that moves around if you put in more code to detect
what's happening.  Charles Moore notes that learning need happen but once. 
What a former co-worker learned after a difficult debugging experience was to
stay away from Forth.  After that job he became an engineering rep for Intel
products (technically also Harris) at a distributor.  He likes to talk about
Forth...

Robert

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