🚀 go-pugleaf

hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes:

> But I would object to any language which insists that we use a strictly
> stack machine.  Pushing, popping, and calling are to be avoided unless
> necessary. Otherwise things just run too slowly to be of more than
> theoretical use.

Why do you object to the use of a stack machine (on which those operations
are fast)?  If a stack language on a stack machine will run n times as fast
as a non-stack language on a non-stack machine of equal technology level, why
not use a stack machine?

Don't some languages insist (for reasonable performance) that the processor
provide registers and addressing modes?

> Getting any speed out of machines requires that we think of speed in
> coding, rather than the fact that it is possible in principle to operate
> with a stack machine with no registers.  This also ignores hardware, such
> as vector machines, where the use of a control register or control stream
> introduces basic bit operations which did not exist before, and which are
> utterly stupid as a means of efficient computation on a stack machine.

There's no reason why special hardware can't be added to a stack machine.
You could, for example, add a pair of FIFO "stacks", which might be useful
for signal processing operations.

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Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca