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Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: Tail recursion optimization
Message-ID: <6595@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Apr-86 13:13:27 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6595
Posted: Tue Apr 15 13:13:27 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 15-Apr-86 13:13:27 EST
References: <2516@utcsri.UUCP> <708@bentley.UUCP>, <2122@watmath.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 15

> >A good optimizer should compile tail-recursion into a jump anyway...
> 
> There is a problem if you want to support a "nargs" function with this...

Nargs was a useful thing back in the days of V5 and early V6, when almost
everything in C was one word in size.  Its usefulness is greatly diminished
now that C's data types have gotten more diverse.  Especially since there
are serious portability problems involved in *doing* anything with the
information, and with implementing nargs at all.  For these reasons, most
everyone has stopped using it.  Nargs is not a major argument against a
potentially useful optimization.
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