[r6rs-discuss] Question about fold-* procedures ?

[Blake Coverett]

On 9/28/06, Jens Axel Søgaard <jensaxel at soegaard.net> wrote:
> Also, even though SRFI 1 specifies the result returned
> by fold and fold-right with a recursive specification,
> it does say whether the evalutation proces should be
> recursive or iterative. That's just an implementation
> detail.

It is an implementation detail, but the meta-question about
whether the spec should make guarantees about the O(n)
space and/or time usage of various procedures is a good one.
Some languages do, some don't.  Scheme's core value
that tail calls be implemented correctly is already a large
step in that direction.

regards,
-Blake