[bun-neh]

You should look in to Factor, a higher level concatenative language.. http://factorcode.org/

There is a package for lexical variables for those instances where stack shuffling is absolutely not the way to implement your algorithm. This page http://docs.factorcode.org/content/article-locals-examples.h... compares the stack shuffling vs lexical variable approaches. Oh, and those lexical variable have essentially no computational overhead.

I disagree that the tendency to factor a single function into many simpler ones exacerbates the understandability of a function. If done properly you get fantastically readable functions, such as this gem from https://github.com/JohnEarnest/Mako/blob/master/games/Deep/D... :

    move-player fire waves bounce think draw-score spawn-crab storm

This snippet of a high level function is self describing. 1) Check to see if movement keyboard entry is pressed and move the player 2) check to see bomb keyboard entry is pressed and move an existing bomb 3) simulate the ocean waves etc...

Factoring gives you a chance to mitigate complexities in stack shuffling and allows you to build a semantically meaningful representation of your problem. Concatenative languages lend themselves to creating DSLs; every solution you write should be a small DSL for that particular problem or subproblem.

[kenko]

This snippet reads to me as if it says:

(1) move the player unconditionally (2) do something involve fire, or perhaps involving firing, unconditionally (3) maybe the player waves? maybe there are waves? (4) ??? (5) ??? (6) update the score (7) create a new crab unconditionally (8) storm the fortress? there is a storm?

Nothing is self-describing absent context. (I have sufficient context for "draw-score" and "spawn-crab" that I don't think they mean, say, "check scores to see if there's a draw" and "create a crab of the 'spawn' type".)

[Someone]

"This snippet of a high level function is self describing. 1) Check to see if movement keyboard entry is pressed and move the player"

I disagree. I do not see anything there that can even remotely be explained to imply the 'check to see if movement keyboard entry is pressed' part. Something like 'handle-player-movement' would be better.

Similarly, 'fire' could fire a gun, simulate fire in the way 'waves' (apparently) simulates waves, etc.