Richard Kennehan wrote:
> That assignment pointlessly emphasized the importance of recursion, to the
> point of teaching us that it should be used more often that it actually
> should be. A MUCH better assignment would have been this:
> An evil computer programmer has used recursion in order to make his code so
> hard to read and understand, that only he can understand it, thus preventing
> him from ever getting fired. However, the company decided to fire him when
> another programmer discovered his evil plan. As a newly hired programmer,
> it is your job to CONVERT his recursive mess into an iterative solution that
> is easy for other programmers to understand and maintain.
> This would teach students how recursion works, AND how to convert it to an
> iterative solution, AND teach good coding style, AND teach a lesson about
> how trying to engineer your own job security makes life harder for the
> person who will eventually replace you.
STOP!!! Please!
I've been quiet until now, since I think, there is no wrong or right
coding style. It also depends on the individual preferences. Humans are
different, they don't fit into a strict schema.
But now you are starting to tell us, that *you* know what's right or
wrong. And everybody that doesn't follow your preferences is coding bad
(or an evil programmer). That's pure arrogance! I know this is harsh,
but I had to say it that way.
*I* can think in recursions very easy. For *me* i.E. the Quicksort
algorithm is much easier to understand in it's recursive form than the
iterative one.
Traversing through a tree is much easier done with recursion too. *I*
like it, and it works for me. So don't call it bad, only because *you*
have problems thinking in recursions. For me it's often the much more
natural solution.
And I like to use ? too. It makes the code compact and *easier* to read
for *me*. I can concentrate on the main thing and don't have to scroll
up and down over those (sometimes annoying) { and } lines.
And I learned, that a function with more than 100 lines of code (not
counting {} here) is bad coding style and should be broken into smaller
pieces. And I agree 100%.
I have never used GOTO again after I went from C64-Basic to Pascal and
later C++. It's simply unnecessary and may (and often will!) lead to
spaghetti code.
I won't answer all your "Like what? Example please!" questions, because
I'm afraid this is getting into a flame war.
BTW: Aren't there any better groups to discuss this topic?
Have fun!
Thomas
_______________________________________________________
Thomas Jentzsch | *** Every bit is sacred ! ***
tjentzsch at web dot de |
-
Archives (includes files) at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/archives/
Unsub & more at http://www.biglist.com/lists/stella/
