In addition to the above, I would like to point out that it is theoretically impossible for Perl 5 to be tail-recursive. Using caller you are supposed to be able to generate a complete stack backtrace. There is no way to reconcile that ability with trying to automatically notice that certain frames will not be used again so you can pre-emptively throw them away.

This is an important point. Adding highly dynamic features (such as the ability to ask for a stack backtrace whenever you want) frequently conflicts with asking for nice optimizations. Which is better? The debugging support of Carp's confess(), or the performance benefit of optimizing tail-recursion? (There isn't a right answer, only a trade-off.)

In reply to Re: Iterative vs Recursive Processes by tilly
in thread Iterative vs Recursive Processes by mvaline

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