> support for tail recursion Let's be clear - it "supports" tail recursion; it just uses more than a constant amount of space on the stack to handle the calls

> support for tail recursion Let's be clear - it "supports" tail recursion; it just uses more than a constant amount of space on the stack to handle the calls - in other words, it doesn't transform the recursive call to a loop. Eliminating tail calls is by no means a hard problem in the general case - it's on the order of something you might be expected to do in an introductory compilers class. The problem is particular to the JVM. As I understand it, is due to the fact that the JVM was architected in a way that doesn't allow it to guarantee that a tail call can be transformed into a loop. These techniques certainly existed in the early 90s (they've existed since, what, the 60s?), but at the time, I guess people didn't think it was a priority. I have no further knowledge of the JVM, so I can't really comment on whether or not they'll be able (or willing) to add the support, but the problem is dealing with legacy designs/systems, not a difficult problem of CS theory.