recursion

Not one browser implements TCO, and Babel only implements direct recursion, not mutual recursion.

Run with python lambda.py 2>&1 | head -c 200 to avoid filling your screen with exhausted recursion depth.

Do not confuse tail recursion, which is the least interesting narrow case of a tail call, with tail calls in general.

I recall a study[1] where they questioned whether recursion is more difficult than iteration if it is introduced first.

Moreover, Rossum is opposed to proper tail calls and even recursion in general[2].

You don't need iteration, as it is a special case of recursion.

People make a big deal about TCO, but it was only necessary in Scheme because they didn't want to include loops in the language, opting instead to provide recursion and implement loops in terms of recursion.

Construcive mathematics implies for me to construct all objects you talk about on the things you already declared (for example, recursion becomes a notational shortcut).

The Y combinator instead works in the lambda calculus which does not have recursion, and it instead relies on recombining the function for each application.

Certainly recursion was difficult for me when I was first learning because I had done a lot of programming using iteration first.

I'm actually a bit scared of using recursion in production (at a web company).

I like when I have both tools at my disposal: recursion and iteration.

- Circular references are detected because they trigger a "too much recursion" exception.

Recursion feels awkwardly void, empty, almost nonsensical, but when you click your horizon broaden dramatically.