Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!willett!ForthNet
From: ForthNet@willett.UUCP (ForthNet articles from GEnie)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Forth on the Intel 80386
Message-ID: <628.UUL1.3#5129@willett.UUCP>
Date: 8 Mar 90 01:02:31 GMT
Organization: Latest link in the ForthNet chain.  (Pgh, PA)
Lines: 25

Category 3,  Topic 7
Message 31        Tue Mar 06, 1990
D.RUFFER [Dennis]            at 22:20 EST
 
 Re: PETE KOZIAR

 > Here's today's trivial speed-up.  Three of the most-used consants
 > are certainly -1, 0 and 1.  F83 defined them as CODE words, but
 > F-PC does not.

A warning is in order here.  polyFORTH defined 0 and 1 as constants for years.
Recently, however, we implemented a way to revector the number conversion and
interpetation process.  Under this system, it is occasionally neccessary for 0
and 1 to pass through the number conversion process.  Then, defining numbers
as constants can get you into a lot of trouble.  We have now resorted to
removing their heads in the nucleus.  This allows us the speed advantage in
the nucleus, but eliminates the interpretation problems on the application
side. I don't know if this would be a problem in F-PC, or if compiling
headless code is a feature of F-PC's meta compiler.  I only note that making
constants for frequently used numbers is not always desireable.

FYI   DaR
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