Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
1–10 of 115 posts
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#2and TCO was added then removed from js! https://stackoverflow.com/a/54721813
This leads to fun stack-overflow bugs too in a lot of js code (one solution is to flatten: https://joshua.hu/javascript-infinite-tail-call-recursion-st...)
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#3and TCO was added then removed from js! https://stackoverflow.com/a/54721813 This leads to fun stack-overflow bugs too in a lot of js code (one solution is to flatten: https://joshua.hu/javascript-infinite-tail-call-recursion-st... )
Lack of TCO is also a common footgun for Scheme programmers using Common Lisp.
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#4I think Anton is replying to me in that LWN article IIRC. I personally didn't know C only had tail calls that late and learnt something new there!
On the other hand, I am pretty new to the compiler space myself, and I count early 2000s as a pretty long time ago, though again it is not that far back considering how long other language implementations had tail calls like in ML or variants since 1980-90s.
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#5> In 2001 Mark Probst implemented tail-call optimization in GCC with a separate calling convention; he lists the limitations of the then-existing tail-call optimization in GCC in section 6.4, among them: "It cannot handle indirect calls" (which would have been used in tail calls for interpreter dispatch).
Relatively recent being a quarter of century? Or at least a fifth of a century for indirect calls[1] (GCC 3.4.6 is the earliest I see on Compiler Explorer, released March 2006).
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#6>That quote is the article, and it's a little surprising that it's buried so far into the content
Is it really surprising in 2026? Today's online writing style is not primarily designed to communicate. It's designed to keep the reader 'engaged' for as long as possible. The reader's time is a resource to be extracted.
I'm absolutely not poking this author individually. It's the writing style of the net.
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#7and TCO was added then removed from js! https://stackoverflow.com/a/54721813 This leads to fun stack-overflow bugs too in a lot of js code (one solution is to flatten: https://joshua.hu/javascript-infinite-tail-call-recursion-st... )
Lack of TCO is also a common footgun for Scheme programmers using Common Lisp.
This footgun is the reason I'm so enthusiastic about the Rust `become` keyword.
This proposal would give Rust a specific keyword which says that you intend TCO and so two things happen: 1. The compiler goes to more length to deliver TCO even where it wouldn't "just work" and 2. If it cannot deliver TCO your code doesn't compile, because you asked for TCO.
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lack of TCO is also a common footgun for Scheme programmers using Common Lisp.
This footgun is the reason I'm so enthusiastic about the Rust `become` keyword. This proposal would give Rust a specific keyword which says that you intend TCO and so two things happen: 1. The compiler goes to more length to deliver TCO even where it wouldn't "just work" and 2. If it cannot deliver TCO your code doesn't compile, because you asked for TCO.
Sounds like clang::must_tail?
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#9and TCO was added then removed from js! https://stackoverflow.com/a/54721813 This leads to fun stack-overflow bugs too in a lot of js code (one solution is to flatten: https://joshua.hu/javascript-infinite-tail-call-recursion-st... )
Lack of TCO is also a common footgun for Scheme programmers using Common Lisp.
Only if they are using an insufficiently smart compiler. SBCL handles TCO just fine, as do a number of other implementations, see : https://0branch.com/notes/tco-cl.html
Re: Tail-call optimization in C is relatively recent (2025)
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lack of TCO is also a common footgun for Scheme programmers using Common Lisp.
This footgun is the reason I'm so enthusiastic about the Rust `become` keyword. This proposal would give Rust a specific keyword which says that you intend TCO and so two things happen: 1. The compiler goes to more length to deliver TCO even where it wouldn't "just work" and 2. If it cannot deliver TCO your code doesn't compile, because you asked for TCO.
Sounds similar to @tailrec in Scala
I personally use the phrase "tail call elimination" when it's a requirement that can be relied on; and "tail call optimisation" when it might be implementation-dependent, context-dependent, limited (e.g. to immediate self-calls), etc.