...the idea that TRE is merely an optimization, which each Python implementation can choose to implement or not, is wrong. Once tail recursion elimination e

...the idea that TRE is merely an optimization, which each Python implementation can choose to implement or not, is wrong. Once tail recursion elimination exists, developers will start writing code that depends on it, and their code won't run on implementations that don't provide it. Someone should tell this to the amateurs over at GCC: https://godbolt.org/z/97s5afhsq https://godbolt.org/z/97s5afhsq and Clang: https://godbolt.org/z/v384noWjq https://godbolt.org/z/v384noWjq and Microsoft: https://godbolt.org/z/Wr5zrWT84 https://godbolt.org/z/Wr5zrWT84 and Intel: https://godbolt.org/z/5E7Mavf7h https://godbolt.org/z/5E7Mavf7h As we all know, because these widely-used compilers treat TCO as an optimization, C programmers have become problematically insistent on using tail recursion instead of loops.