Re: [stack] disallowing recursive definitions

John Cowan <[email protected]> wrote:
> Joe Bowbeer scripsit:
>  > As a former Schemer and fan of continuations, I'm conditioned to view (tail)
>  > recursion as the simpler, more powerful concept.  Not looping.

>  Sure it's simpler and more powerful.  That's because it's a general goto
>  (with transfer of values).  And as Dijkstra said, "the go to statement
>  as it stands is just too primitive; it is too much an invitation to make
>  a mess of one's program."

I'm generally on Knuth's side on this one.

But I don't see how tail recursion is a general goto statement. It
seems structured -- in particular, a tail recursion has only one entry
point.

>  John Cowan   http://ccil.org/~cowan    [email protected]

-Wm