🚀 go-pugleaf

In <Bxns5v.5uJ@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>, hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) wrote:
> In article <17434@mindlink.bc.ca> Nick_Janow@mindlink.bc.ca (Nick Janow) writes:
> >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?
>
> HOW can a stack machine be fast?  One of the features of an efficient program
> is to have the quantities needed available in registers.

Not quite - delete "registers", and replace it with "fastest available
memory". Most architechtures put that memory in a seperate address
space with special address modes, but neither is required.  There are
machines where the registers are just a particularly fast piece of
ram; there are machines where that address may be set by the
programmer; there are even machines that map the top of the stack into
high-speed memory. The latter would be quite appropriate for a being a
fast stack machine, even though it wasn't designed for that.

	<mike