>>>>> "Leif" == Leif Johnson <leif.t.johnson at gmail.com> writes:
    >> 
    >> I remember being forbidden to use any looping constructs in my
    >> first semester of computer science.  It was a very helpful
    >> discipline.
    >> 

    Leif> Then tell them that they are never ever actually allowed to use
    Leif> recursion unless they can prove that the problem can be solved no
    Leif> other way.  (just contributing to the flame-war.)

I suppose if you have a compiler that's so dumb it can't rewrite
tail-recursion to iteration, that might be true.  (JCTtF-w.)

Seriously, the Scheme standard demands that this optimization be
performed, so why would you ever avoid tail recursion in Scheme?  I
dunno about other languages.  I think you pretty much want to avoid it
in C!

Cheers,
R

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