From: no.email@nospam.invalid   
      
   Hans Bezemer  writes:   
   > You comfortable left out the initialization of the stack   
   > frame. Agreed, if ALL values are transferred to the return stack the   
   > overhead is minimal. But how often happens that?   
      
   I don't understand this.  {: a b c :} transfers 3 elements from the   
   parameter stack to the return stack.  That has some cost, but it is   
   offset by avoiding some DUP and similar operations.  Is it relevant at   
   all anyway?  Old fashioned Forth interpreters are pretty fast, and if   
   you're worrying about avoiding a stack transfer here or there, you need   
   an optimizing compiler.   
      
   Adding safety checks has a cost, but once the program appears debugged,   
   I think Forth philosophy is to turn off the checks.   
      
   > True - but that's not the level of abstraction I'm considering. I   
   > think a language should have a well designed core, surrounded by a   
   > constellation of extensions. Like C with its standard library and   
   > Forth with its word sets.   
      
   You might like Lua or Scheme for simple higher level languages with that   
   style of design.  C has some warts but its complexity in terms of   
   keywords doesn't seem much worse than Forth's core words.   
      
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