Path: csiph.com!optima2.xanadu-bbs.net!xanadu-bbs.net!feeder.erje.net!1.eu.feeder.erje.net!newsfeed.kamp.net!newsfeed.kamp.net!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail
From: Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python
Subject: Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 10:39:36 +1200
Lines: 11
Message-ID: <d102t8F8rq4U3@mid.individual.net>
References: <55a3dcd9$0$3024$426a34cc@news.free.fr> <55A6280C.3090602@rece.vub.ac.be> <mo6iq5$vqk$1@ger.gmane.org> <55A76116.7070708@rece.vub.ac.be> <mailman.606.1437075284.3674.python-list@python.org> <87lhefanui.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> <mailman.656.1437162474.3674.python-list@python.org> <877fpya4hy.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> <mailman.669.1437180088.3674.python-list@python.org>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Trace: individual.net o722d9vSNTvXkgPmovzgzwj6pJxVqK1y2xpXWK0z3lZIPrs17P
Cancel-Lock: sha1:RR0A6nwt1Xft6lUIurddUMkMH7M=
User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.5 (Macintosh/20050711)
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
In-Reply-To: <mailman.669.1437180088.3674.python-list@python.org>
Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:94066

Terry Reedy wrote:
> Problems with branching recursion (multiple recursive calls per 
> call) are rare except for very deep trees and graphs.

And if your recursion is branching, tail calls won't help
you, except in certain special cases (such as the quicksort
example) where you can predict in advance which branches
are safe to recurse down.

-- 
Greg