[Python-Dev] Re: Proper tail recursion

[Paul Prescod]

Andrew Koenig wrote:
>>Where the recursion limit really bites me is the inability to do
>>recursive depth first search on big graphs.  Of course, I can simulate
>>the stack myself and write the rest iteratively, but if I wanted to do
>>that I'd go back to writing in assembly language.
> 
> 
> +1.
> 
> If you think you don't care about recursive depth-first searches on big
> graphs, think again: Pickling is an example of such an algorithm.  I haven't
> looked at how it's actually implemented, but it seems to me that either the
> implementation must simulate recursion manually or it will fail on linked
> data structures that are bigger than the recursion limit. 

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2003-November/193953.html
http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2003-November/193956.html

  Paul Prescod