tail recursion

[gls@Think.COM (Guy Steele)]

   Date: Mon, 23 Apr 90 15:10:24 PDT
   From: Warren Harris <harris@hplwhh.hpl.hp.com>

   There's a lot of talk about how tail-recursion affects resource utilization.
   What about how it affects the programming environment?  Certainly whether an
   implementation performs tail-recursion elimination or not is visible in the
   debugging process (e.g. in a backtrace).  It's presence may make debugging more
   difficult because intermediate stack frames may be eliminated.  I think this
   aspect is just as important as whether the machine runs out of stack space or
   not.  They're both properties of the implementation.

   Warren

Seeing tail-recursive items on the stack is like seeing goto's
on the stack.

Sometimes a goto-trace can be pretty useful.

Time was when certain beloved computers kept a branch trace in
hardware (a ring buffer of the last PC or the last 16 or so PC's
from which you branched).

Seeing tail-recursive items on the stack is like seeing apply's
on the stack.