Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com>: > On Tue, Jul 14, 2015 at 3:41 PM, Marko Rauhamaa <ma...@pacujo.net> wrote: >> Tail-call optimization has nothing to do with converting algorithms into >> iterations. It's a prosaic trick of dropping an unneeded stack frame >> before making a function call. >> >>> The claim that TCO means you don't need stack space for all those >>> levels of recursion doesn't work if you still need stack space for all >>> those levels of recursion *before* you get to the tail call. >> >> Nobody is making that claim. > > Actually, that claim was made - that Python's stack would overflow if > you didn't optimize tail calls away. I don't feel like digging up > through the history to find out who first made the claim, but it was > made in this thread.
Nobody is making the claim that optimizing tail calls *always* saves you from stack overflows. Optimizing tail calls *sometimes* saves you from stack overflows. Marko -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
