Iterative vs. Recursive coding

[Ben Finney]

Steven D'Aprano <steve at REMOVE-THIS-cybersource.com.au> writes:

> On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:00:16 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:
>
> > Recursion can be quite a trick to get your mind round at first
>
> Really? Do people actually find the *concept* of recursion to be
> tricky?

Evidently so. It's folk wisdom that some adults find recursion an easy
concept, and those people will find programming significantly easier;
and the majority of people have a great deal of difficulty with
recursion and so find programming correspondingly difficult.

There is evidence that the phenomenon is at least significant and
measurable <URL:http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=53033>.

There is all manner of speculation as to what might cause this divide in
capability, but precious little scientific research has been done on the
differences between such people AFAICT.

-- 
 \       “Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe |
  `\   or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.” —Arthur C. Clarke, |
_o__)                                                             1999 |
Ben Finney