2025-10-18 19:37:14 <somelauw    > I was philosophizing about stack-based and the was thinking about comparison operators. Many algorithms start by duplicating the top argument(s). Would it perhaps make sense for operators like > to just leave the top two items on the stack and just add a flagresult on top?
2025-10-18 19:48:07 <arbe        > Not sure about making it the default, but it's a useful option for sure -- UXN, a Forth-inspired virtual stack machine architecture, reserves a flag bit in its instruction encodings specifically for this purpose, and it does make certain things somewhat easier to write
2025-10-18 19:48:48 <vdupras     > Yeah, such approach can indeed speed up things, but you do end up with a whole new set of words (2dup> 2dup= etc.). If this kind of optimization was indeed worth it, I think it'd rather pimp up the compiler with a single lookahead as well as a lookup table.
2025-10-18 19:49:05 <vdupras     > When it sees "2dup >", it instead compiles the replacement word in the table
2025-10-18 19:49:48 <vdupras     > This way, you don't have to expand your vocabulary only for speed purposes
2025-10-18 19:50:51 <vdupras     > Another good lookahead is "<anything> ;" that can be replaced by a jump instead of call+return
2025-10-18 19:51:18 <arbe        > the good ol' tailcall
2025-10-18 19:54:52 <somelauw    > yeah i was wondering if forth were redesigned, whether it would be a better or equally good default. But itt does mean you need something like "> drop drop" when you don't need it
2025-10-18 19:57:15 <arbe        > in my experience the words' consumption of stack arguments feels really core to Forth's identity as a language
2025-10-18 19:57:59 <arbe        > I often find myself writing words which don't necessarily *need* to drop their arguments, but do so anyway just because it feels more idiomatic
2025-10-18 20:03:14 <cleobuli_   > forthBot:  S" somelauw  qui se prend la tête devant son ordinateur "S IMAGE
2025-10-18 20:03:30 <forthBot    > https://i.ibb.co/201xGkQt/mforth-image-r-Fge-M1.png
2025-10-18 20:05:38 <somelauw    > hmm, consistency matters, although some dialects do have a print-command that doesn't drop
2025-10-18 22:03:30 <forthBot    > Environment for cleobuli_ inactive, freeing...
2025-10-18 22:09:25 <ajhidd      > I'd vote either for every forth word to consume the value(s) on the stack or mark "keeping" words explicitly like Uxntal does. Some time ago I tried a forth-like PL that had it all - both consuming and keeping words intermixed. It was quiet hell. I could never write a single statement with certainty. I had to try everything in REPL first.