YouTube offered this to me. Perhaps the world is catching on.

https://youtu.be/EumXak7TyQ0

So what shall we do with ANS CASE :)

On Sat, 23 Sep 2023 19:33:05 +1000
dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:

> So what shall we do with ANS CASE :)

Ideally, ignore if you do not need CASE, else
conform with ANS, else use a different name.

Jan Coombs
--

> YouTube offered this to me. Perhaps the world is catching on.
>
> https://youtu.be/EumXak7TyQ0

This has been already described years ago in „Thinking Forth”
(„ATM example”, chapter 8).

On Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 5:33:09 AM UTC-4, dxf wrote:
> YouTube offered this to me. Perhaps the world is catching on.

We must have similar profiles. I saw it yesterday as well.

On 23/09/2023 8:09 pm, jan Coombs wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Sep 2023 19:33:05 +1000
> dxf <dxforth@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> So what shall we do with ANS CASE :)
>
> Ideally, ignore if you do not need CASE, else
> conform with ANS, else use a different name.

I suspect most find 'case' too useful to ignore. I provide
ANS as a compatibility add-on.

Mostly OF suffices (applying the don't use ELSE paradigm).
Should I need a common-exit case, I have is COND CONT.
From the latter I define the compatibility words:

AKA COND CASE
AKA ELSE ENDOF
: ENDCASE POSTPONE DROP POSTPONE CONT ; IMMEDIATE

On 23/09/2023 8:15 pm, Zbig wrote:
>> YouTube offered this to me. Perhaps the world is catching on.
>>
>> https://youtu.be/EumXak7TyQ0
>
> This has been already described years ago in „Thinking Forth”
> („ATM example”, chapter 8).

Yes - and little has changed since :)

On Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 11:33:09 AM UTC+2, dxf wrote:
> YouTube offered this to me. Perhaps the world is catching on.
> So what shall we do with ANS CASE :)

It's nothing new - but note it's also a paradigm shift. In the old days the world wanted
a single return from a function - which was logical in a sense, because long functions
were still very much a reality. Using too many exit points was waiting for an accident to
happen. Maybe it was also fashionable to write long functions to minimize function call
overhead. Especially on older processors it's not insignificant - building a stack frame,
discarding it on exit.. you catch my drift.

I quickly found out all that is not much of an issue with Forth, because small functions
(words) were the paradigm there (read "Thinking Forth"). So I quickly switched to multiple
exits.

On 4tH this was amplified by the introduction of the optimizer. Using ;THEN instead of
ELSE provided much tighter code, because it discarded superfluous jumps. So if there
was nothing after a THEN to execute, ELSE could be replaced by a ;THEN quite easily.

BTW, if you got an ELSE clause and the IF requires a 0= you can further simplify by
switching the IF and ELSE clauses, so there is no need for 0= anymore.

Anyways, you see that the C-like world is moving to shorter functions, because they're
much easier to control. Of course, there are still exceptions - e.g. when speed is the prime
directive. I wouldn't like to break up my VM code in smaller chunks, for example. Worse,
I'm inlining a *lot* there for the same reason.

I don't know how other Forths are in this regard, but on smaller tables CASE..ENDCASE is
significantly faster than any other technique - with the exception of direct indexed access.
On smaller tables it even easily beats a binary search. So for that reason - and that reason
alone - I'm keeping that construct in.

Hans Bezemer

On 25/09/2023 12:48 am, Hans Bezemer wrote:
> On Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 11:33:09 AM UTC+2, dxf wrote:
>> YouTube offered this to me. Perhaps the world is catching on.
>> So what shall we do with ANS CASE :)
>
> It's nothing new - but note it's also a paradigm shift. In the old days the world wanted
> a single return from a function - which was logical in a sense, because long functions
> were still very much a reality. Using too many exit points was waiting for an accident to
> happen. Maybe it was also fashionable to write long functions to minimize function call
> overhead. Especially on older processors it's not insignificant - building a stack frame,
> discarding it on exit.. you catch my drift.

There are reasons for continuing to use ELSE but how did we get ELSE ? ELSE is a
logical complement to IF and I suspect that's why every language has it. Having
ELSE, it has become a habit - one whose cost we've not really considered before.

> I quickly found out all that is not much of an issue with Forth, because small functions
> (words) were the paradigm there (read "Thinking Forth"). So I quickly switched to multiple
> exits.
>
> On 4tH this was amplified by the introduction of the optimizer. Using ;THEN instead of
> ELSE provided much tighter code, because it discarded superfluous jumps. So if there
> was nothing after a THEN to execute, ELSE could be replaced by a ;THEN quite easily.
>
> BTW, if you got an ELSE clause and the IF requires a 0= you can further simplify by
> switching the IF and ELSE clauses, so there is no need for 0= anymore.
>
> Anyways, you see that the C-like world is moving to shorter functions, because they're
> much easier to control. Of course, there are still exceptions - e.g. when speed is the prime
> directive. I wouldn't like to break up my VM code in smaller chunks, for example. Worse,
> I'm inlining a *lot* there for the same reason.
>
> I don't know how other Forths are in this regard, but on smaller tables CASE..ENDCASE is
> significantly faster than any other technique - with the exception of direct indexed access.
> On smaller tables it even easily beats a binary search. So for that reason - and that reason
> alone - I'm keeping that construct in.

I agree. For me it's the syntax rather than the mechanism that irritates.
ELSE (aka ENDOF) is built into the syntax and the user is stuck with it.

On Saturday, 23 September 2023 at 10:33:09 UTC+1, dxf wrote:
> YouTube offered this to me. Perhaps the world is catching on.
>
> https://youtu.be/EumXak7TyQ0
>
> So what shall we do with ANS CASE :)

https://youtu.be/SFv8Wm2HdNM?si=Xxcw7yy1zZEg_aUk

You can skip to 'the nesting structure' if you dont want to watch the whole video

Its a shame we never get to hear back from the youtubers if they continued to believe and practice what they preached or whether they went back to their old ways after say 5 years or 10 years.

Statistics from the iForth distribution.

Searching for: IF ( examples, 6908 files )
Found 37736 occurrence(s) in 1300 file(s), 957 ms
Searching for: ELSE ( examples, 6908 files )
Found 7010 occurrence(s) in 1028 file(s), 962 ms

Searching for: IF ( include, 1183 files )
Found 8241 occurrence(s) in 324 file(s), 233 ms
Searching for: ELSE ( include, 1183 files )
Found 2393 occurrence(s) in 296 file(s), 240 ms

An IF-THEN statement contains and ELSE in 20 - 25% of cases.

-marcel

On 30/09/2023 1:01 am, NN wrote:
> On Saturday, 23 September 2023 at 10:33:09 UTC+1, dxf wrote:
>> YouTube offered this to me. Perhaps the world is catching on.
>>
>> https://youtu.be/EumXak7TyQ0
>>
>> So what shall we do with ANS CASE :)
>
>
> https://youtu.be/SFv8Wm2HdNM?si=Xxcw7yy1zZEg_aUk
>
> You can skip to 'the nesting structure' if you dont want to watch the whole video
>
> Its a shame we never get to hear back from the youtubers if they continued to believe and practice what they preached or whether they went back to their old ways after say 5 years or 10 years.

If a serial youtuber, it may be more about the presentation than conviction?

Among the 'conviction' topics I've written about:

http://dxforth.mirrors.minimaltype.com/forth.html

REPRESENT/FPOUT, BETWEEN, ALLOT, UNNEST, END I still embrace.

The most problematic of which was ALLOT as it breaks standard code.

Extended control-flow I never had much use for again and is now a
loadable extension.

Statistics from the iForth distribution.

Searching for: IF ( examples, 6908 files )
Found 37736 occurrence(s) in 1300 file(s), 957 ms
Searching for: ELSE ( examples, 6908 files )
Found 7010 occurrence(s) in 1028 file(s), 962 ms

Searching for: IF ( include, 1183 files )
Found 8241 occurrence(s) in 324 file(s), 233 ms
Searching for: ELSE ( include, 1183 files )
Found 2393 occurrence(s) in 296 file(s), 240 ms

An IF-THEN statement contains an ELSE in only
20 - 25% of cases, while an IF is used in roughly
one out of four programs.

-marcel

Marcel Hendrix <mhx@iae.nl> writes:
>Statistics from the iForth distribution.
>
>Searching for: IF ( examples, 6908 files )
>Found 37736 occurrence(s) in 1300 file(s), 957 ms
>Searching for: ELSE ( examples, 6908 files )
>Found 7010 occurrence(s) in 1028 file(s), 962 ms
>
>Searching for: IF ( include, 1183 files )
>Found 8241 occurrence(s) in 324 file(s), 233 ms
>Searching for: ELSE ( include, 1183 files )
>Found 2393 occurrence(s) in 296 file(s), 240 ms
>
>An IF-THEN statement contains and ELSE in 20 - 25% of cases.

In the Gforth image there are 917 IFs and 347 ELSEs (38%).

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
New standard: https://forth-standard.org/
EuroForth 2023: https://euro.theforth.net/2023

On 30/09/2023 4:16 pm, Marcel Hendrix wrote:
> ...
> An IF-THEN statement contains an ELSE in only
> 20 - 25% of cases

Only? It seems you went out of your way :)

In article <2023Sep30.090048@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at>,
Anton Ertl <anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at> wrote:
>Marcel Hendrix <mhx@iae.nl> writes:
>>Statistics from the iForth distribution.
>>
>>Searching for: IF ( examples, 6908 files )
>>Found 37736 occurrence(s) in 1300 file(s), 957 ms
>>Searching for: ELSE ( examples, 6908 files )
>>Found 7010 occurrence(s) in 1028 file(s), 962 ms
>>
>>Searching for: IF ( include, 1183 files )
>>Found 8241 occurrence(s) in 324 file(s), 233 ms
>>Searching for: ELSE ( include, 1183 files )
>>Found 2393 occurrence(s) in 296 file(s), 240 ms
>>
>>An IF-THEN statement contains and ELSE in 20 - 25% of cases.
>
>In the Gforth image there are 917 IFs and 347 ELSEs (38%).

To complete the statistics ciforth 44 IF and 14 ELSE.

>
>- anton

Groetjes Albert
--
Don't praise the day before the evening. One swallow doesn't make spring.
You must not say "hey" before you have crossed the bridge. Don't sell the
hide of the bear until you shot it. Better one bird in the hand than ten in
the air. First gain is a cat spinning. - the Wise from Antrim -

On 2023-09-29 19:28, Marcel Hendrix wrote:
> Statistics from the iForth distribution.
>
> Searching for: IF ( examples, 6908 files )
> Found 37736 occurrence(s) in 1300 file(s), 957 ms
> Searching for: ELSE ( examples, 6908 files )
> Found 7010 occurrence(s) in 1028 file(s), 962 ms
>
> Searching for: IF ( include, 1183 files )
> Found 8241 occurrence(s) in 324 file(s), 233 ms
> Searching for: ELSE ( include, 1183 files )
> Found 2393 occurrence(s) in 296 file(s), 240 ms
>
> An IF-THEN statement contains and ELSE in 20 - 25% of cases.
>

In the SP-Forth/4 distribution (all the repository, many authors):
Search for " IF\b"
11205 matches
1263 files contained matches
2421 files searched
Search for " ELSE\b"
3868 matches
853 files contained matches
2421 files searched
-- 35%

In the sources of SP-Forth/4 only
Search for " IF\b"
1301 matches
51 files contained matches
85 files searched
Search for " ELSE\b"
184 matches
40 files contained matches
85 files searched
-- 14%

--
Ruvim

On Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 12:26:39 PM UTC+2, Ruvim wrote:
[..]
> In the SP-Forth/4 distribution (all the repository, many authors):
> Search for " IF\b"
> 11205 matches
> 1263 files contained matches
> 2421 files searched
> Search for " ELSE\b"
> 3868 matches
> 853 files contained matches
> 2421 files searched
> -- 35%
>
> In the sources of SP-Forth/4 only
> Search for " IF\b"
> 1301 matches
> 51 files contained matches
> 85 files searched
> Search for " ELSE\b"
> 184 matches
> 40 files contained matches
> 85 files searched
> -- 14%

Shouldn't that be 65% and 86% ?

-marcel

On 2023-09-30 11:46, Marcel Hendrix wrote:
> On Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 12:26:39 PM UTC+2, Ruvim wrote:
> [..]
>> In the SP-Forth/4 distribution (all the repository, many authors):
>> Search for " IF\b"
>> 11205 matches
>> 1263 files contained matches
>> 2421 files searched
>> Search for " ELSE\b"
>> 3868 matches
>> 853 files contained matches
>> 2421 files searched
>> -- 35%
>>
>> In the sources of SP-Forth/4 only
>> Search for " IF\b"
>> 1301 matches
>> 51 files contained matches
>> 85 files searched
>> Search for " ELSE\b"
>> 184 matches
>> 40 files contained matches
>> 85 files searched
>> -- 14%
>
> Shouldn't that be 65% and 86% ?

I consider the number of matches (not the number of files) in each of
two groups of files. The second group (85 files) is a subset of the
first group (2421 files). The number of files are left for reference only.

Also, I assume that when "ELSE" is used, "IF" is used too.
Thus, the percentage shows the fraction of IF THEN that is used with ELSE.

3868/11205 = 0.35 (in the first group)
184/1301 = 0.14 (in the second group)

--
Ruvim

On Sunday, September 24, 2023 at 9:48:24 AM UTC-5, Hans Bezemer wrote:
> It's nothing new - but note it's also a paradigm shift. In the old days the world wanted
> a single return from a function - which was logical in a sense, because long functions

A single exit helps if a breakpoint or some analysis routine
is wanted to decorate a word's ending.
--
me

On Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 5:45:04 PM UTC-5, S Jack wrote:

I put exits in routines that don't need them, e.g. ABORT,
and I have a redundant exit for use with shortcuts.
Redundant and superfluous code, what horrors!
Well, the de-compiler knows to keep going until SEMIS is
found.
--
me

In article <30e85f38-df81-477a-91db-96304b5f81b7n@googlegroups.com>,
S Jack <sdwjack69@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Sunday, September 24, 2023 at 9:48:24 AM UTC-5, Hans Bezemer wrote:
>> It's nothing new - but note it's also a paradigm shift. In the old days
>the world wanted
>> a single return from a function - which was logical in a sense, because
>long functions
>
>A single exit helps if a breakpoint or some analysis routine
>is wanted to decorate a word's ending.

The decorator in ciforth doesn't need a single exit for `example.

WANT { decorated CO
{ .S CO .S } 'example decorated

This prints the stack before and after example.

>--
>me

Groetjes Albert
--
Don't praise the day before the evening. One swallow doesn't make spring.
You must not say "hey" before you have crossed the bridge. Don't sell the
hide of the bear until you shot it. Better one bird in the hand than ten in
the air. First gain is a cat spinning. - the Wise from Antrim -

On 1/10/2023 10:43 am, S Jack wrote:
> On Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 5:45:04 PM UTC-5, S Jack wrote:
>
> I put exits in routines that don't need them, e.g. ABORT,
> and I have a redundant exit for use with shortcuts.
> Redundant and superfluous code, what horrors!
> Well, the de-compiler knows to keep going until SEMIS is
> found.

If Forth is as 'close to the metal' as we like to claim, there
should be no need to seek assurances from de-compilers.

On Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 9:42:15 PM UTC-5, dxf wrote:

> If Forth is as 'close to the metal' as we like to claim, there
> should be no need to seek assurances from de-compilers.

Seem to recall that it also helped with compiling words that move pre-compiled
code into a definition instead of compiling source into the definition.
--
me

In article <20e3626c-b571-4be6-a002-5002517bcd18n@googlegroups.com>,
S Jack <sdwjack69@gmail.com> wrote:
>On Saturday, September 30, 2023 at 9:42:15 PM UTC-5, dxf wrote:
>
>> If Forth is as 'close to the metal' as we like to claim, there
>> should be no need to seek assurances from de-compilers.
>
>Seem to recall that it also helped with compiling words that move pre-compiled
>code into a definition instead of compiling source into the definition.

No need to be categoric about this. de-compilers come in handy for
a lot of purposes.

Remember the macro solution for the magic hexagon?
It is interesting to look at the decompilation that finally comes out.

I use the decompilation of my ciforth to compare with previous version,
an extra precaution to detect mistakes.

>--
>me

Groetjes Albert
--
Don't praise the day before the evening. One swallow doesn't make spring.
You must not say "hey" before you have crossed the bridge. Don't sell the
hide of the bear until you shot it. Better one bird in the hand than ten in
the air. First gain is a cat spinning. - the Wise from Antrim -