Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!uflorida!novavax!proxftl!bill
From: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Basics of Program Design
Message-ID: <506@proxftl.UUCP>
Date: 20 Jul 88 16:02:58 GMT
References: <901@td2cad.intel.com> <3061@rpp386.UUCP> <395@proxftl.UUCP> <53374@ti-csl.CSNET> <464@proxftl.UUCP> <54109@ti-csl.CSNET>
Reply-To: bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells)
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Organization: Proximity Technology, Ft. Lauderdale
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In article <54109@ti-csl.CSNET> gateley@mips.UUCP (John Gateley) writes:
> In article <464@proxftl.UUCP> bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes:
> >2) Pointed out that the only compiler that anyone says can do
> >   tail recursion, gcc, applies to a single processor, and that
> >   my work requires porting to over a hundred compilers.
>
> There are many compilers which do tail recursion: several Common Lisp compilers
> do, and by definition the programming language Scheme is tail recursive.

But not C compilers.  That was the implied context.  Sorry if
that was not clear.  And, if one wants portability, none of the
languages where recursion is the preferred way to express
iteration are suitable.  The problem is not with the languages
themselves, but rather that we have to have better
implementations than are currently available.  Imagine running
your Scheme program on a Z80 (or an 8051)!  An 8086 is just
barely adequate for that.