On Mon, 21 May 2007 08:04:37 -0500
Robert Fischer <robert.fischer@SmokejumperIT.com> wrote:

> I'm with Brian on this, although it the "tailrec" specification needs to  be optional.  I use tail recursion by accident a lot when I'm coding 
> ("Oh, hey, I guess this is tail recursive.  Nifty!"), and I would be  really annoyed to have to think about whether my recursion is tail 
> recursive or not every time I use it.


I'm repeating my suggestion: extend the typing annotation (produced by -dtypes) to flag every tail recursive call, and have the emacs mode and ocamlbrowser display every tail call particularily (e.g. in a different color or font).

This don't require any additional language construct.

And BTW, I'm not sure such thing will happen, because I am not sure that the Gallium team is interested in coding it :-) 

Also, tail recursion is IMHO a beginner's puzzle. I'm pretty sure every experimented Ocaml programmer does know inside his code what are his tail recursive calls.


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