How many stacks? (WAS: alloca(), #if, and other controversial things...)

David Goodenough dg at lakart.UUCP
Tue Aug 23 05:51:56 AEST 1988


smryan at garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan) writes:
>I don't understand: the concept of a single big general purpose stack is
>fundamental to any language that implements recursion.

And then there was BCPL. And FORTH.

I disagree with Mr. Ryan, but I would suggest the following (I'm open to
being corrected by those with more knowledge :-)

AT LEAST ONE STACK is necessary for the implementation of a language that
provides recursion, but having two (or more) stacks does not imply that it
can't be done, it just changes the nature of how you do things.
-- 
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