From: no.email@nospam.invalid   
      
   dxf  writes:   
   >> The stack ops THEMSELVES may be, in a way, "canonical" — but not   
   >> solving "each and every" programming task using them   
   >> "no-matter-what", IMHO.   
   >   
   > But such would indicate a deficiency in Forth.  Do C programmers reach a   
   > point at which they can't go forward?   
      
   Assembly language programmers reach a point where they run out of   
   machine registers and have to do clumsy things to swap stuff between   
   registers and memory.  C compilers automate that process.  Every C   
   compiler with register allocation has to deal with register spilling.   
   The programmer doesn't have to deal with it, but it's similar clumsy   
   assembly code coming out of the compiler.   
      
   In Forth without using locals, "register allocation" (deciding what is   
   in each stack slot) is manual and there are fewer "registers" to begin   
   with (basically TOS, NOS, TOR, and the 3rd stack element that you can   
   reach with ROT).  Modern CPUs by comparison generally have 16 or more   
   addressible registers.  The PDP-11 and 8086 had 8 registers and   
   programmers found that to be painful.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)