[Python-Dev] Proper tail recursion (original) (raw)
Christopher T King squirrel at WPI.EDU
Wed Jul 14 21:13:37 CEST 2004
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On Wed, 14 Jul 2004, Michael Hudson wrote:
I guess I could have said this in c.l.py, but: what's the point? I don't think I've ever had a situation where hitting the recursion limit wasn't a bug, and given a) the ease with which a non-contrivedly tail recursive algorithm can usually be rewritten iteratively and b) the (lack of) speed of function calls in today's Python I can't see any huge real advantage to this patch.
To tell the truth, I don't really have any immediate use for this functionality, either, but since it turned out to be so easy to implement, I ask, "why not?" ;) Presuming it doesn't break any existing functionality, of course.* I prefer to think of it in the same light as the opcode prediction macros, i.e. as a performance enhancement, rather than as an attempt to introduce a new paradigm to the language (which it isn't).
- I know it breaks stack traces, but the final implementation will only be used when the -O flag is specified, or some other such indicator is set.
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