[erlang-questions] The history of recursion in languages. Any stories from erlang?

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

On 6/10/2014, at 6:28 PM, Bhasker Kode wrote:
> 
> Which brings me to erlang. To the esteemed members of this list:
> 
> When was recursion or tail recursion introduced in erlang?
> Was it a controversial decision? Was it an easy one?
> Any anecdotes you'd like to share, even about inspirations for
> recursion in erlang?

Erlang has always supported recursion.
I don't know about the first interpreter,
but at least since the first compiler (to JAM),
Erlang has exploited tail recursion.

What could possibly be controversial about it?
If you have a strict functional language you are
pretty much crippled without recursion and tail
recursion.