From: c stirling bartholomew (cc.constantine@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Fri Jul 27 2001 - 22:10:31 EDT
on 7/27/01 5:24 PM, Chet Creider wrote:
> Wonderful that we agree. Let me add for you as a programmer that recursivity
> is theoretically elegant but practically often best replaced by iterativity
> as I'm sure you know, and for other readers that it important to note that
> while for natural languages using the concept of recursion gives considerable
> elegance, there are some very fine theories that get along quite well without
> it (e.g. Halliday's Scale and Category Theory with its notion of
> rank-shifting).
Chet,
Yes recursivity can be replaced with iterativity. I had this proven to me 12
years ago when I handed a recursive data and process model to a systems
engineer who implemented the model twice. Once using recursion and once
using iteration. He did this just to prove that there was nothing magic
about recursion.
However once you start thinking recursively at the analytical level it is a
difficult habit to break. I was taught that recursion was the best way to
approach modeling of complex systems (e.g., languages) and after twenty
plus years of thinking recursion I doubt I could even understand the
iterative models. I have never tried very hard to understand them. Recursion
was just too neat a solution.
Clay
--
Clayton Stirling Bartholomew
Three Tree Point
P.O. Box 255 Seahurst WA 98062
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