Why aren't we all speaking LISP now?

[Steven D. Majewski]

On Sat, 12 May 2001, Grant Edwards wrote:

> On Sat, 12 May 2001 15:20:55 GMT, Fredrik Lundh <fredrik at pythonware.com> wrote:
> 
> >>   1. Python doesn't have tail-recursion (AFAIK).
> >
> >isn't required, and no implementation supports it.  but it's
> >not forbidden either, as far as I can tell.
> 
> But it is required in Lisp implimentations since recursion is
> the standard MO.  Without tail-recusion many Lisp programs
> would not be able to run in reasonable memory footprints.

It required in Scheme, and I think it's required in Common Lisp,
but there have been Lisp's without it. I wonder if any of the
Lisp/Scheme-in-Java implementations support it ?  ( I recall
many complaints about the JVM and poor support for tail recursion
removal may have been among them. ) 

-- Steve Majewski