Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!killer!netsys!lll-winken!lll-lcc!well!jax
From: jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: FORTH and memory
Summary: Wrong Scolders!
Keywords: DO, LOOP, interpreter, aardvarks
Message-ID: <6714@well.UUCP>
Date: 4 Aug 88 05:17:47 GMT
References: <ZMLEB@SCFVM> <8807211846.AA27919@jade.berkeley.edu> <9428@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> <2353@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1530@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <132@kolvi.hut.fi> <17597@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> <6700@well.UUCP> <2558@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 31

In article <2558@pt.cs.cmu.edu> ns@cat.cmu.edu (Nicholas Spies) writes:
>"The interpreter is not invoked in a DO...LOOP in Forth" is half true; the
>Outer Interpreter (invoked by INTERPRET in some Forths) compiles or executes
>Forth words if in compile or execute mode (indicated by the system variable
>STATE) and is not involved with DO...LOOP. However, "compiled" Forth code
>is executed by an Inner (or Address) Interpreter, which follows the threaded
>Forth code (a list of pointers), eventually unthreading it down to the
>machine-code primitives that perform the useful work of the program.
> ...
>However, as I mentioned in an earlier post, some Forth systems do have ways to
>compile colon definitions as in-line machine code to avoid unthreading
>overhead for those words during execution. 
>
>All of this applies to "virtual Forth machines", not the Novix, etc.
>

	Right, Nick! Had hoped to provoke a scold from the original
poster, at which point was to wax heretical. No sense wasting it, here
goes:

	Moore always says, "Forth is to me a a concept more than a language"
and loves to shock his faithful with remarks like "I was wrong to use
screen files; all you need is a good decompiler and you can throw away
the source" ( a la Ureli, JFAR IV,1 p231 ff)

	SOOO ... with chips like the Novix and to a lesser extent the
Super8 ... ( is NOTHING sacred?) bye-bye inner interpreter ...

***
jax@well  		." If G-d had writen Genesis in FORTH ..."
jax@chariot		." She could have rested on the *6th* day!"
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