From ... Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.esat.net!nslave.kpnqwest.net!nloc.kpnqwest.net!nmaster.kpnqwest.net!nreader2.kpnqwest.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: Tail recursion & CL References: <87iteghyva.fsf@pps.jussieu.fr> <87r8syosjs.fsf@pps.jussieu.fr> <3210249273790367@naggum.net> <87zo73fsr4.fsf@pps.jussieu.fr> <3211542753013083@naggum.net> <3211612557359956@naggum.net> <4jDDO4+sWd7EGsbKaJrm6tFaAqq4@4ax.com> <3bc3f0e5.394414087@news.callatg.com> <87669m5b8y.fsf@pps.jussieu.fr> <3bc6887a.564291097@news.callatg.com> <871yk8nc52.fsf@pps.jussieu.fr> <8bbd9ac3.0110130835.6ccb7894@posting.google.com> <87vghgcyyt.fsf@pps.jussieu.fr> <3bcd2e7a.1000063244@news.callatg.com> <3bcdb42c.1034288978@news.callatg.com> <3bd0cbd8$0$30612$9b622d9e@news.freenet.de> <3bd10346.1251147184@news.callatg.com> <2helny8vb9.fsf@dslab7.cs.uit.no> Mail-Copies-To: never From: Erik Naggum Message-ID: <3212581297705213@naggum.net> Organization: Naggum Software, Oslo, Norway Lines: 17 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 15:41:39 GMT X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@Norway.EU.net X-Trace: nreader2.kpnqwest.net 1003592499 193.71.66.49 (Sat, 20 Oct 2001 17:41:39 MET DST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 17:41:39 MET DST Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.lisp:18271 * Frode Vatvedt Fjeld | I was thinking a about possible syntax for explicitly requesting | tail-call merging. Isn't return-from almost that operator? Every | return-from used to exit a function is in effect a tail call for that | function (?). Maybe return-from could be extended to communicate the | programmer's intention when the result-form is a function call? Since you could wrap the entire function body in a return-from, I think this would not be helpful. Figuring out whether a function call is in a tail-call-mergable "position" is not helped by such use of this form. /// -- Norway is now run by a priest from the fundamentalist Christian People's Party, the fifth largest party representing one eighth of the electorate. -- The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers. -- Richard Hamming