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Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2013 11:59:49 -0700
Subject: Re: Tail recursion to while iteration in 2 easy steps
From: Mark Janssen <dreamingforward@gmail.com>
To: Alain Ketterlin <alain@dpt-info.u-strasbg.fr>
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:55375

>> def fact(n): return 1 if n <= 1 else n * fact(n-1)
>>
>> into a tail recursion like
> [...]
>
> How do know that either "<=" or "*" didn't rebind the name "fact" to
> something else? I think that's the main reason why python cannot apply
> any procedural optimization (even things like inlining are impossible,
> or possible only under very conservative assumption, that make it
> worthless).

It's called "operator precedence".

-- 
MarkJ
Tacoma, Washington