The thing is, usually when you want the stack frames, /they are there/. They're present because they form part of the continuation of the computation. Tail cal

The thing is, usually when you want the stack frames, /they are there/. They're present because they form part of the continuation of the computation. Tail calls, because they don't form part of the continuation, are usually not interesting at all in stack traces. To put it another way: a python backtrace doesn't include statements that were already executed. "Of course it doesn't, they're already executed!", you say -- well so have the tail calls! They are exactly equivalent (google for CPS transformation).