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Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 12:58:44 -0700
From: Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us>
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Subject: Re: A new module for performing tail-call elimination
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On 07/16/2015 12:45 PM, Terry Reedy wrote:
> On 7/16/2015 2:02 PM, Ethan Furman wrote:
>> On 07/16/2015 06:35 AM, Antoon Pardon wrote:
>
>>> Here is one way to do the odd, even example.
>>>
>>> def even(n):
>>>      return odd_even('even', n)
>>>
>>> def odd(n):
>>>      return odd_even('odd', n)
>>>
>>> def odd_even(fn, n):
>>>      while fn is not None:
>>>          if fn == 'even':
>>>              fn, n = (None, True) if n == 0 else ('odd', n - 1)
>>>          elif fn == 'odd':
>>>              fn, n = (None, False) if n == 0 else ('even', n - 1)
>>>          else:
>>>              raise ValueError("Unknown state: %s" % fn)
>>>      return n
>>
>> Wow -- definitely uglier and less easy to understand than the original
>> (even if the original had had the error-checking).
>
> What you call ugly is an example of the core of the proof that alternation and indefinite
>  while looping are enough for turing completeness, and that no recursive syntax is needed.
> Another way to put it is that while loops perform recursion in the operational sense, as
>  opposed to the syntactical sense.

And we add new constructs and new language features to make certain ways of thinking/programming easier -- async and await come to mind. ;)  After all, we don't really even need while loops as we 
could get by with if and goto.

--
~Ethan~