Why tail call optimization?
When a function call is made inside another function call, a new execution stack is created for the inner function call. However, the problem is that the inner function execution stack takes up some extra memory--that is, it stores an extra address, representing where to resume the execution when this function finishes executing. Switching and creating the execution stacks also takes some additional CPU time. This problem is not noticeable when there are a couple of hundred, nested levels of calls, but it's noticeable when there are thousands or more nested levels of calls--that is, the JavaScript engines throw the RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded exception. You might have, at some point, experienced ...
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