In a recent blog post on Python’s functional features, the absence of support for tail recursion elimination (TRE) sparked a debate. The author defends their position by stating TRE is incompatible with Python’s helpful debugging tools, threatens code compatibility across different Python implementations, and is not essential for everyday programming. They assert that Python’s built-in functionalities, like lists and sequences, are more practical than recursion. The post explores potential ways to implement TRE, including using decorators, but highlights the risks and complexities involved. Ultimately, the author questions the necessity of TRE and suggests using loops as a simpler alternative.
http://neopythonic.blogspot.com/2009/04/tail-recursion-elimination.html