Why doesn't JUMP_IF_FALSE do POP_TOP ?

[Terry Reedy]

> > Seems simple enough to add a new code that combines the two? That
> > would avoid breaking old compiled code.
>
> Could add more than one; below is the inventory of conditional jump
> opcodes from a you've-never-heard-of-it language. All of the opcodes
> pop the stack first and jump depending on the popped value.

When I asked about this in August one answer was that this should not
be changed until the 'new compiler' is finished (it still is not)
because adding an opcode would create foward/backward incompatibilites
that are not justified by such a minor optimization.

Terry J. Reedy