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Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination

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On 07/16/2015 10:07 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Wednesday 15 July 2015 19:29, Antoon Pardon wrote:
>
>> Suppose I start with the following:
>>
>> def even(n):
>>     True if n == 0 else odd(n - 1)
>>
>> def odd(n):
>>     False if n == 0 else even(n - 1)
> Well, both of those always return None, so can be optimized to:
>
> even = odd = lambda x: None
>
> :-)
>
> Fixing the obvious mistake (failing to return anything) leads to the next 
> mistake. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
>
> def even(n):
>     return n%2 == 0
>
> def odd(n):
>     return n%2 != 0
>
>
> are faster, easier to understand, and don't turn into an infinite loop if 
> you pass a negative integer.

Nice of you to illustrate how being pedantic about something, can
make a response useless with regard to the intended original question.

Sure your implementation for solving this particular problem is better
if the purpose is to actually solve this problem. But it is useless as
an illustration for the question I'm asking, which was about how to
use a particular module.

> The point is, people keep insisting that there are a vast number of 
> algorithms which are best expressed using recursion and which require TCO to 
> be practical, and yet when asked for examples they either can't give any 
> examples at all, or they give examples that are not well-suited to 
> recursion. Or, at best, examples which are equally good when written either 
> using recursion or iteration.

So what did you expect? That I should give a real world example here with
lots of details that would only detract from the information I'm looking
for, just so that your curiosity would be satisfied?

I'm not here to satisfy your or anyone else's curiosity. Certainly not
when that curiosity often enough is just a pretext for donning the
role of judge or arbiter and where any simplification that was done
to make the example better understandable is siezed upon as a reason
to dismiss it, because one looks at it litterally, like you do above,
and is unable or unwilling to understand the spirit of the example.

-- 
Antoon Pardon

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A new module for performing tail-call elimination "Th. Baruchel" <baruchel@no.spam.gmx.dot.com> - 2015-07-13 15:44 +0000
  Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2015-07-15 11:29 +0200
    Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2015-07-16 18:07 +1000
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Robin Becker <robin@reportlab.com> - 2015-07-16 10:13 +0100
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Robin Becker <robin@reportlab.com> - 2015-07-16 10:28 +0100
        Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-07-16 12:56 +0300
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2015-07-16 12:41 +0200
        Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2015-07-17 04:58 +1000
          Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2015-07-17 11:00 +0200
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-07-16 21:11 +1000
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Jeremy Sanders <jeremy@jeremysanders.net> - 2015-07-16 13:29 +0200
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2015-07-16 15:35 +0200
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-07-16 23:47 +1000
        Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2015-07-17 20:06 -0700
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2015-07-16 16:21 +0200
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-07-17 00:27 +1000
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2015-07-16 17:14 +0200
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2015-07-16 10:17 -0600
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2015-07-16 10:54 -0700
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2015-07-16 11:02 -0700
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2015-07-16 15:45 -0400
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2015-07-16 12:58 -0700
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Robin Becker <robin@reportlab.com> - 2015-07-17 09:57 +0100
    Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Alain Ketterlin <alain@universite-de-strasbourg.fr.invalid> - 2015-07-16 13:23 +0200
  Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2015-07-15 17:19 -0400
  Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2015-07-16 09:45 +0200
  Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2015-07-16 15:34 -0400
    Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-07-16 22:45 +0300
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2015-07-17 15:47 -0400
        Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-07-17 23:55 +0300
          Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2015-07-17 20:40 -0400
            Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2015-07-19 10:39 +1200
          Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-07-18 10:47 +1000
          Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2015-07-19 10:39 +1200
      Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2015-07-19 10:39 +1200
        Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-07-19 01:09 +0100
        Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2015-07-19 01:19 +0100
        Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2015-07-19 09:29 +0300
  Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination Antoon Pardon <antoon.pardon@rece.vub.ac.be> - 2015-07-17 10:06 +0200

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