ECMAScript 4 & Apple's resistance
Because I'm out of the loop with my head in a thesis, I was surprised to hear about the dropping of tail calls in the plans for ECMAScript 4. There's a bit of interesting discussion on tail calls on that thread before it wanders off into general pure/impure flames. One gem is a Google Docs spreadsheet which shows the ECMA industrial members' votes on various proposals, including Apple's bleeding-red No column. That reads to me as an uncharacteristic resistance to innovation from Apple.