29 Jan
1999
29 Jan
'99
5:57 p.m.
amoroso@mclink.it (Paolo Amoroso) wrote:
Does the Squeak compiler generate properly tail recursive code?
I don't think so. As a defense, optimizations are generally more complicated in Smalltalk than in non-OO languages, because of the late binding.
In this case, suppose you have a class Bar, with a method as follows:
func: x (x cos - x) abs < 0.0001 ifTrue: [ ^x ]. ^self func: x cos
A nice, tail recursive function, right? Well, suppose we then add a subclass Bar, which defines a new version of func: as follows:
func: x Trascript show: x printString. ^super func: x
Well, now func: isn't always tail recursive--it depends on whether "self" is a Foo or a Bar!
Lex