[Newbies] Re: [] whileTrue: [] implementation

[Erlis Vidal]

is there any reason why smalltalk doesn't implement tail recursion
optimization? Is by "language design"? It tries to avoid any issue?

Thanks
Erlis

On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 1:50 PM, nicolas cellier <
nicolas.cellier.aka.nice at gmail.com> wrote:

> Bert Freudenberg <bert <at> freudenbergs.de> writes:
>
> >
> > On 05.10.2011, at 00:24, nicolas cellier wrote:
> >
> snip... gmane is a tyrant
> >
> > Yes, but log(n) is still not good enough for loops that run forever. Like
> the
> Morphic main loop. Or the idle process.
> >
> > I don't think it's possible to emulate whileTrue without reaching for the
> meta
> hammer. Interesting
> > discussion though. Maybe a bit over the head of the average newbie ;)
> >
> > - Bert -
> >
>
> Ah yes of course, this is the essential case... And we cannot even know if
> the
> loop is going to halt.
> For the two specific cases you submitted, we could cheat by using another
> VM
> magic and let the UI and idle process regenerate by forking themselves and
> completely ignore any synchronisation requirement.
> Or emulate tail call elimination by playing with thisContext>>sender:
> But the sport is becoming a bit crooked. And we're getting far from initial
> question.
> It's already something to know that a jump bytecode solves these problems
> efficiently.
>
> Nicolas
>
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