[stack] Re: Concatenative versus Compositionality

--- In [email protected], Robbert van Dalen
<robbert.van.dalen@...> wrote:
>
> 
> But what about postfix notation, i.e. the operator always comes after  
> the operands?

Hi all,

In an effort to discover exactly what's meant by the term
"concatenative," I offer the following description of a language I
think all of us would call concatenative:

A program (or function) is a mapping from stacks to stacks such that,
(S)[P] -> (S') where P is a program and S, S' are stack contents.

A program is represented as an ordered sequence of terms which is
evaluated from left to right according to these two rules:

1 - Literal terms are pushed onto the stack. For example:
    ()[8] -> (8)
    ()[[1 2]] -> ([1 2])
    ()['name] -> (name)

2 - Named terms are executed according to their definitions:
    (8)[dup *] -> (8 8)[*] -> (64)
    ()["Hello!" put] -> ("Hello!")[put] ->  () with Hello! output.

Now, exactly why is this language concatenative?
Is it because of the stacks?
Is it because of the "ordered sequence of terms?"
Is it because of right-associative notation?
Is it something else?
Is it all of the above?
Is this example insufficient?

IMHO, answering this question is required for the definition to be useful.
--
Don