[Python-Dev] Proper tail recursion (original) (raw)

Jeremy Hylton jhylton at gmail.com
Thu Jul 15 14:35:57 CEST 2004

On Wed, 14 Jul 2004 18:36:16 -0700, Guido van Rossum <guido at python.org> wrote:

I'm not interested in adding this to the official Python release.

One reason is that if an exception happens in such a tail-recursive call, the stack trace will be confusing. Another reason is that I don't think it's a good idea to try to encourage a Scheme-ish "solve everything with recursion" programming style in Python. But feel free to maintain this as an independent modification, a la Stackless -- I'm sure there are people who would like to try this out.

It would be pretty interesting to create a Python-fork project that combined all sorts of different ideas for a Python implementation: Stackless + tagged integers + tail recursion. There's more value to having an actual SF project with its own CVS repository than to having a collection of patches on various web pages. We'd have more people trying the changes and have a better chance of understanding their effects (performance, stability, readability, &c). Maybe we'll find that some of the ideas would be good for Python.

I like Python-fork as the name; it captures the experimental nature for me.

Jeremy

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