Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!mx02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Unknown Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth Subject: Re: How do you remember the stack? Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2016 05:46:52 -0000 (UTC) Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 37 Message-ID: References: <07ab86b1-3681-47c0-80ea-d7bd908925e7@googlegroups.com> <87fuwxd1js.fsf@nightsong.com> <2016Feb16.082803@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> <86egc4sre0.fsf@molnjunk.nocrew.org> <4b862821-c8a5-47a6-b5f7-a9b242048b9c@googlegroups.com> <86a8mkovib.fsf@molnjunk.nocrew.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Injection-Date: Thu, 2 Jun 2016 05:46:52 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: mx02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="e6671e71d08862edd4b522bf4a26c34b"; logging-data="758"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19z6hI0RRVj0CJhNlnX+ykaWAcfvRAo3zk=" User-Agent: Pan/0.133 (House of Butterflies) Cancel-Lock: sha1:65Gm6yzsSw+Fe/wkxUVa+SxCV0U= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.forth:47715 On Mon, 29 Feb 2016 19:34:35 -1000, Elizabeth D. Rather wrote: > On 2/28/16 8:55 PM, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: >> "HAA" writes: >>> You have 7 new words and stack effects to remember. How is this >>> brilliant? >> >> I'm certainly not saying this is brilliant. Maybe the opposite! >> >> Those that are brilliant experienced Forth programmers can probably get >> away with writing long complex definitions. Kudos to them! > > The most brilliant and experienced Forth programmers I know write short, > simple, well-documented definitions. > >> But I'm not brilliant. My short-term memory can't handle that many >> items. Too much stack juggling confuses me. Writing a metacompiler >> took me tree attempts. >> >> So when I'm writing a definition and I'm losing track its internal >> stack state, I break it up. When I can glance at a definition and >> immediately see that it's "obviously correct", then I'm happy. >> >> But I'm not advocating this for everyone. By all means, use whatever >> style you're comfortable with. > The secret is in your phrase "GLANCE AT". Menu-based means you don't need to remember, you just recognise. "Well commented" tries to use this fact that humans are VISUAL. [dogs and ants are said to work via smells] COLOR potentially adds an extra dimension to the menu effect, in a very compact efficient way. The fact that CM's colorForth didn't 'catch-on' is perhaps due to today's F/B, twitter kiddies being conditioned & wanting to imitate TV talk-show personalities?