[ghoul2]

Sigh. I have been kicking this horse forever as well: an "optimization" implies just a performance improvement.

Tail call elimination, if it exists in a language, allows coding certain (even infinite) loops as recursion - making loop data flow explicit, easier to analyze, and at least in theory, easier to vectorize/parallelize, etc

But if a language/runtime doesn't do tail call elimination, then you CAN'T code up loops as recursion, as you would be destroying you stack. So the WAY you code, structure it, must be different.

Its NOT an optimization.

I have no idea who even came up with that expression.