[stack] Re: What does "concatenative" actually mean?

--- In [email protected], William Tanksley <wtanksleyjr@...> wrote:
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> Forth -- and any practical language -- has a huge set of basis
> functions, and allows you to define your own functions that are used
> just like basis functions.

No, actually, it has a rather small set of basis functions, with a number of others often provided in advance for convenience to save defining them later. The latter are often set up in low level code for efficiency, but in principle they could be set up as high level extensions and/or loaded later. However, some implementations deliberately go for a very minimal basis set, ones like eforth and hforth aimed at getting up and running on platforms without much in the way of a software base to help install new stuff. These typically have fewer than 30 words defined at low level (and you could get away with even fewer), with just a few more high level ones in the source that could be loaded later instead. Regardless, a huge basis is not in keeping with the typical Forth philosophy; nearly all Forths do NOT have huge amounts set up in advance, and the stuff that is is just a matter of convenience. P.M.Lawrence.