From: Robert Dober <robert.dober@...>
Date: 2007-07-19T23:23:43+09:00
Subject: Re: The Pebble in the Ruby Shoe

On 7/19/07, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
> Logan Capaldo wrote:
>
> > You've never written code to traverse some kind of tree? And if you have,
> > you did it all iteratively? I would suggest _lots_ of programmers use
> > recursion, even in C.
>
> There's a big difference between an explicit stack with iterative code
> and recursion with an implicit stack. I've done a lot of explicit stack
> coding for walking data structures -- indeed, the last time I did so was
> a recent piece of code that generates the state space of a large finite
> Markov chain. But the only time I've written recursive functions as a
> *preferred* modus operandi has been in Lisp, Scheme and the Lisp-based
> symbolic math package Derive. And there, I've always aimed for tail
> recursion.
> >
I see recursion as a useful tool of abstraction I remember having
implemented quick sort on a Sharp PC [forgot the name] in its
primitive Basic dialect. There were 13 cells left to be sorted LOL.
Never ever has a program given me more satisfaction, but nowadays I
would rather not waste my time on doing it manually, well I remember a
fascinating post of James explaining that unwinding the stack has
become second nature to him.
But who else will be able and/or willing to read your program?

Just my 2 nickels.

R.

>

>
>


-- 
I always knew that one day Smalltalk would replace Java.
I just didn't know it would be called Ruby
-- Kent Beck