Stackless Python, Tail Recursion and Functional Programming

[Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters]

beno <zope at thewebsons.com> wrote previously:
|Someone wrote me from this list advising me to drop my passion for
|functional programming because Python doesn't optimize for it. Then I
|remembered Cameron Laird's *Stackless Python*. Doesn't this take care of
|this problem by converting the stack into a tree, just like XSLT? Doesn't
|that make optimization for tail recursion a cake-walk? And, if so, if I
|implement the necessary changes to my Python distro, can I write recursive
|programs without worrying about optimization problems?

I think someone has found my reference to recursive transition networks,
or Laura's releated one to Markov chains.  As near as I can tell, this
post is a random assemblage of commonly occurring (related) words and
phrases from past c.l.py messages.

Am I right? Do I get a prize for noticing it?

Laird didn't make Stackless.  Stackless doesn't optimize tail recursion.
None of this has anything to do with XSLT.  There's no real connection
between stack trees and recursion.  Etc.

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