Stackless Python, Tail Recursion and Functional Programming

[beno]

At 03:13 AM 1/11/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>beno <zope at thewebsons.com> wrote previously:
>|Someone wrote me from this list advising me to drop my passion for
>|functional programming because Python doesn't optimize for it. Then I
>|remembered Cameron Laird's *Stackless Python*. Doesn't this take care of
>|this problem by converting the stack into a tree, just like XSLT? Doesn't
>|that make optimization for tail recursion a cake-walk? And, if so, if I
>|implement the necessary changes to my Python distro, can I write recursive
>|programs without worrying about optimization problems?
>
>I think someone has found my reference to recursive transition networks,
>or Laura's releated one to Markov chains.  As near as I can tell, this
>post is a random assemblage of commonly occurring (related) words and
>phrases from past c.l.py messages.
>
>Am I right? Do I get a prize for noticing it?

No. All this occurred in my head via memory.


>Laird didn't make Stackless.  Stackless doesn't optimize tail recursion.
>None of this has anything to do with XSLT.  There's no real connection
>between stack trees and recursion.  Etc.

Darn :(
Thanks, tho.
beno