Re: [stack] disallowing recursive definitions

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 8:35 PM, John Cowan wrote:

> Joe Bowbeer scripsit:
>
> > As a former Schemer and fan of continuations, I'm conditioned to view
> (tail)
> > recursion as the simpler, more powerful concept.  Not looping.
>
> Sure it's simpler and more powerful.  That's because it's a general goto
> (with transfer of values).  And as Dijkstra said, "the go to statement
> as it stands is just too primitive; it is too much an invitation to make
> a mess of one's program."
>
> If you haven't actually read Dijkstra's squib, it's very much worth
> reading at
>
> http://www.u.arizona.edu/~rubinson/copyright_violations/Go_To_Considered_Harmful.html<http://www.u.arizona.edu/%7Erubinson/copyright_violations/Go_To_Considered_Harmful.html>
> and numerous other places around the Net.
>
>

As far as I know, Dijkstra didn't have a beef with recursion.

The author of the following retrospective writes that Dijkstra probably
considered recursion to be intellectually easier to grasp than iterative
looping:

 http://david.tribble.com/text/goto.html

In any event, it's clear from Dijkstra's letter than he didn't consider
recursion to be harmful!

To avoid confusion, I should have used the word "elegant".

Recursion is the simple, elegant solution.

--
Joe Bowbeer
  http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/front/node3.html
    [ Sobre los gustos no hay disputa. ]


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