I'm no expert on the theory, and have never used lisp, but many algorithms I find far easier to think about in terms of recursion, which means the resulting code (when written in those terms) reads much more naturally and clearly to me.

Let's take that factorial example, and consider what happens if you memoize it - if you calculate factorial(100), you've done in passing the work required to calculate the factorials of 1 .. 99, and the recursive variant will memoize those results as well for no extra work, while the iterative one won't.

The thing is, recursion is a tool like any other, and I wouldn't refuse a better screwdriver simply because I've already got a good hammer.

Hugo

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Re: Iterative vs Recursive Processes by hv
in thread Iterative vs Recursive Processes by mvaline

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