Software bugs aren't inevitable

[Mike Meyer]

aahz at pythoncraft.com (Aahz) writes:
> In article <7xpsrb78tn.fsf at ruckus.brouhaha.com>,
> Paul Rubin  <http://phr.cx@NOSPAM.invalid> wrote:
>>Every serious FP language implementation optimizes tail calls and thus
>>using recursion instead of iteration doesn't cost any stack space and
>>it probably generates the exact same machine code.
> While that's true, one of the reasons Guido has historically rejected
> this optimization is because there are plenty of recursive algorithms
> not amenable to tail-call optimization.

That seems amazingly silly. Sort of like refusing to hoist function
definitions because not all function definitions can be hoisted. Or
choose your favorite "sometimes-I-can-sometimes-I-can't" optimization.

Since the BDFL is *not* known for doing even mildly silly things when
it comes to Python's design and implementation, I suspect there's more
to the story than that.

        <mike
-- 
Mike Meyer <mwm at mired.org>			http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/
Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information.