Python's "only one way to do it" philosophy isn't good?

[James Stroud]

Terry Reedy wrote:
> In Python, you have a choice of recursion (normal or tail)

Please explain this. I remember reading on this newsgroup that an 
advantage of ruby (wrt python) is that ruby has tail recursion, implying 
that python does not. Does python have fully optimized tail recursion as 
described in the tail recursion Wikipedia entry? Under what 
circumstances can one count on the python interpreter recognizing the 
possibility for optimized tail recursion?

James


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Disclaimer: Mention of more than one programming language in post does 
not imply author's desire to begin language v. language holy battle. The 
author does not program in [some or all of the other languages mentioned 
aside from the language topical to the newsgroup] and has no opinions on 
the merits or shortcomings of said language or languages.

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