amoroso at 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