Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp

From	rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.forth
Subject	Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp
Date	2015-05-16 13:58 -0400
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<mj80eb$d51$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(6 earlier) <mj2leq$m34$1@dont-email.me> <mj53dq$r5g$1@dont-email.me> <zM2dnUzYlOIF1MvInZ2dnUU7-cGdnZ2d@supernews.com> <mj7ifj$nlp$1@dont-email.me> <2015May16.181227@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>

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On 5/16/2015 12:12 PM, Anton Ertl wrote:
> rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> writes:
>> So why was <BUILDS removed from the language standard?  Seems like it is
>> useful especially since you can't do the same things with CREATE.
>
> One would have to ask the Forth-79 committee why they did not include
> it.  Note that <BUILDS in fig-Forth worked quite differently from what
> Elizabeth Rather described: It worked like the CREATE of
> Forth-79...Forth-2012, but used an extra cell.  It seems that someone
> (Chuck Moore?) came up with an idea to get rid of the extra cell; one
> could have done so and still call the word <BUILDS, but apparently
> someone found it preferable to change CREATE to work like <BUILDS
> without the extra cell, and then use CREATE instead of <BUILDS.  Saves
> one word, and I am sure the word counters were already a force to be
> reconned with in the Forth-79 committee.
>
> <BUILDS did exactly what CREATE does since Forth-79, so I find it a
> bad idea to introduce a new word <BUILDS that does something different
> from the old <BUILDS.  Admittedly, it has been 26 years, so any old
> code has either been updated or is never going to be updated; but
> concepts live longer in programmer heads, so using an old name for a
> different concept may cause confusion.
>
> As for not being able to do the same things with CREATE, a programmer
> can do all the same things with CREATE that he can do with the
> proposed new, restricted <BUILDS; the advantage of the new, restricted
> <BUILDS is not that the programmer can do new things, but that the
> system implementor can implement it cheaper and/or easier.

Thanks for the info.  I have to say I still have gaps in my 
understanding.  When you say the old <BUILDS uses an extra cell, do you 
mean in the header structure of every word?  I can see where that would 
be an expensive price.  If you mean there is an extra word used in the 
implementation of words defined with <BUILDS, then obviously this is 
less of an issue.

Why would the implementation of <BUILDS be constrained by precedence? 
Obviously I don't understand what this extra cell implies.

-- 

Rick

Thread

Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-10 11:06 -0400
  Array of Constants in Mecrisp Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-05-10 09:02 -0700
    Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-10 15:50 -0400
      Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-05-11 00:38 -0700
      Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2015-05-11 12:10 +0200
        Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-11 11:24 -0400
          Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2015-05-12 13:03 +0200
        Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-05-11 23:19 +0000
          Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-11 20:47 -0400
            Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-05-12 17:05 +0000
          Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2015-05-12 12:49 +0200
        Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-14 13:00 -0400
          Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-05-14 18:04 +0100
            Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-14 13:20 -0400
              Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Alex McDonald" <blog@rivadpm.com> - 2015-05-14 18:46 +0100
              Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-05-14 20:42 +0200
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-15 11:25 -0400
              Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-05-14 09:11 -1000
              Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-05-15 07:26 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-05-14 22:30 -1000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-05-15 10:03 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-05-15 11:05 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-05-15 12:51 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-05-15 15:40 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-05-16 13:40 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-05-16 11:25 -1000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-05-15 09:28 -1000
              Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-15 11:31 -0400
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-05-15 09:31 -1000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-16 10:00 -0400
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-05-16 16:12 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-16 13:58 -0400
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2015-05-16 18:03 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Bernd Paysan <bernd.paysan@gmx.de> - 2015-05-18 00:36 +0200
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2015-05-18 08:37 +0200
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2015-05-18 12:55 +0200
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2015-05-18 13:44 +0200
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-05-19 00:17 +0000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-05-16 11:36 -1000
                Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp "Elizabeth D. Rather" <erather@forth.com> - 2015-05-16 11:27 -1000
            Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2015-05-15 10:48 +0000
  Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2015-05-11 12:06 +0200
    Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2015-05-11 04:48 -0700
      Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2015-05-12 12:39 +0200
        Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp foxaudioresearch@gmail.com - 2015-05-12 16:29 -0700
    Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-14 13:05 -0400
      Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp Coos Haak <chforth@hccnet.nl> - 2015-05-14 22:21 +0200
        Re: Array of Constants in Mecrisp rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2015-05-15 11:27 -0400

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