Postfix languages [was Re: [NOISE] Curly braces [was Re: Curl]]

[Guy Steele - Sun Microsystems Labs <address@hidden>]

One interesting property of postfix languages is that
the computation is presented in bottom-up order rather
than top-down, so I find myself sometimes reading
Forth programs backwards to try to get the big picture
before the details.

(Interestingly enough, Pascal, with which I have much more
experience, has something of the same property; because a
procedure must be declared before it is used, Pascal programs
tend to have their low-level "leaf" procedures at the front
and the main program, therefore the main idea, at the end.
Whenever presented with a large Pascal program, I usually
turn to the last page and work my way backwards.)

--Guy