Re: why tail recursion matters and why Java isn't it, was Re: lisp performance was Re: problems with lisp

[Guy Steele - Sun Microsystems Labs <address@hidden>]

   To: Guy Steele - Sun Microsystems Labs <Guy.Steele@sun.com>
   Cc: sk@cs.brown.edu, costanza@web.de, ll1-discuss@ai.mit.edu
   Subject: Re: why tail recursion matters and why Java isn't it, was Re: lisp 
performance was Re: problems with lisp
   From: Peter Seibel <peter@javamonkey.com>
   Date: 04 Sep 2003 16:25:11 -0700
   User-Agent: Gnus/5.09 (Gnus v5.9.0) Emacs/21.3
   
   Guy Steele - Sun Microsystems Labs <Guy.Steele@sun.com> writes:
   
   > P.S. Yes, per Pascal Costanza, Common Lisp with proper tail
   > recursion and call/cc WOULD be a better language.
   
   Mr. Steele (Guy? Quux?):
   
   I'm curious if you happen to have an opinion on Kent Pitman's
   argument[1] that call/cc would make Common Lisp a *worse* language
   because it can't be compatibly combined with unwind-protect. I don't
   have a particular point of view in this argument, mostly because I'm
   not sure I've really understood what he's trying to say nor the folks
   who have occasionally argued with him about it on comp.lang.lisp.
   
   -Peter
   
   [1] <http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PFAQ/unwind-protect-vs-continuations.html>
   
Pitman raises a good point, and if call/cc were to be added
to Common Lisp, I rather favor his solution #1: when you ask
for a continuation, you can say whether you need a multi-use
continuation.

--Guy Steele