From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: ruhl@4dv.net (Robert Uhl ) Newsgroups: gmane.lisp.guile.user Subject: Re: Stack Size? Date: 08 Aug 2002 15:49:34 -0600 Sender: guile-user-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: localhost.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1028843367 23030 127.0.0.1 (8 Aug 2002 21:49:27 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 8 Aug 2002 21:49:27 +0000 (UTC) Return-path: Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([199.232.76.164]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17cv9p-0005zD-00 for ; Thu, 08 Aug 2002 23:49:26 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17cvAS-0004hA-00; Thu, 08 Aug 2002 17:50:04 -0400 Original-Received: from mail.4dv.net ([66.7.157.8] helo=ntserver-4d18.4dvision.net) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 17cvA0-0004g2-00 for ; Thu, 08 Aug 2002 17:49:36 -0400 Original-Received: from latakia.dyndns.org (unverified [66.7.170.6]) by ntserver-4d18.4dvision.net (Vircom SMTPRS 1.4.232) with ESMTP id for ; Thu, 8 Aug 2002 15:50:41 -0600 Original-Received: (from ruhl@localhost) by latakia.dyndns.org (8.11.6/8.8.7) id g78LnZl21152; Thu, 8 Aug 2002 15:49:35 -0600 X-Authentication-Warning: latakia.dyndns.org: ruhl set sender to ruhl@4dv.net using -f Original-To: guile-user@gnu.org In-Reply-To: Original-Lines: 47 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/21.2 Errors-To: guile-user-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: guile-user@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: General Guile related discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.lisp.guile.user:792 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.lisp.guile.user:792 Neil Jerram writes: > > > I've re-written the function, but it seems to me that it'd perhaps > > make more sense for Guile to simply grow the stack until it runs > > out of memory. Is there a technical reason this doesn't happen? > > No idea, I'm afraid. Perhaps it's considered a good thing for a > language to allow applications to have a grip on their stack usage? In a dynamic, functional language such as Scheme--or indeed any language--I'm not so certain I agree. While on the one hand switching to a tail function is certainly more efficient, it seems to me that that's not always the case. And certainly it can often be much clearer to write a bunch of functions which call bunches of functions which... > According to the output of `(debug-options 'full)', you can turn off > stack size checking by setting the limit to 0, i.e.: > > (debug-set! stack 0) Well, I'll not do that unless I need to--but I'd really rather I didn't need to. Que sera sera, I s'pose:-) It seems to me somewhat broken that one must set a debug option explicitly off. Sort of a command-line switch --behave-yourself, when that should be the default behaviour. Certainly, stack size checks may be _very_ useful when testing code. But just as certainly, in production those same checks are a nuisance, and can cause code to break. Or am I just being foolish? It's a definite possibility, I'll grant:-) -- Robert Uhl The purpose of the First Amendment's free-speech guarantee was pretty clearly to protect political discourse. But liberals reject the notion that free speech is therefore limited to political topics, even broadly defined. True, that purpose is not inscribed in the amendment itself. But why leap to the conclusion that a broadly worded constitutional freedom (`the right of the people to keep and bear arms') is narrowly limited by its stated purpose, unless you're trying to explain it away? My New Republic colleague Mickey Kaus says that if liberals interpreted the Second Amendment the way they interpret the rest of the Bill of Rights, there would be law professors arguing that gun ownership is mandatory. --Michael Kinsley Washington Post, January 8, 1990 _______________________________________________ Guile-user mailing list Guile-user@gnu.org http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/guile-user