Re: tail calls [was: Vanishing MrEd]

[Matthias Felleisen <matthias@cs.rice.edu>]

Shriram should have probably said that we consider tail-call optimizations
as critical because we believe that function definitions including function
calls must totally correspond to the structure of data definitions that
come with a problem. We spell that out in "How to Design Programs"
(htdp.org), and I assume people here have a rough idea of what we mean. 

Because of tail-call optimizations we naturally get the performance of
gotos and labels and a simple elegant functional structure of the program. 

-- Matthias