when creating a colon word the name of the currently-created
word is smudged, so that you can redefine a previous word
of the same name simply by using its name. Sometimes however
one wants to recurse into the current definition instead of
calling the older defintion. The RECURSE word does it
exactly this.
traditionally the following code had been in use:
: GREAT-WORD [ UNSMUDGE ] DUP . 1- ?DUP IF GREAT-WORD THEN ;
now use
: GREAT-WORD DUP . 1- ?DUP IF RECURSE THEN ;