Common Lisp can do the same thing, and people typically prefer returning a product type because capturing multiple return values invariably introduces some extr

Common Lisp can do the same thing, and people typically prefer returning a product type because capturing multiple return values invariably introduces some extra syntax. Forth functions (or words, if you insist) can return multiple values as easily as they can return a single value, but the stack metaphor makes this a lot more natural. This is also true of Joy and RPL and other languages which are conceptually organized around mutating a (notional) stack. Multiple return values only become unnatural when you choose an abstraction other than the stack.