Re: PROLOG in the "real" world?

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Article #4302

#4302

From: Michael A. Covington
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 1991 17:28

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> other reasons for using recursion besides elegance

There are algorithms where the gain in "elegance" is so great that one
almost can't think of how to implement the algorithm without recursion.
Examples are top-down parsing, Quicksort, or other things where the
problem decomposes naturally into smaller problems of the same kind.

As a beginning programmer, I never understood recursion until I ran
into algorithms like these.  Then, all of a sudden, it was perfectly
clear.  In teaching, I always introduce recursion with algorithms
like these, in order to avoid creating the impression that recursion
is merely a mystical substitute for loops.
-- 
==================================================================
Michael A. Covington, Ph.D.  |  mcovingt@uga.cc.uga.edu   |  N4TMI
Assistant to the Director, Artificial Intelligence Programs
The University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602, U.S.A.

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From: mcovingt@athena.cs.uga.edu (Michael A. Covington)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.prolog,comp.software-eng,comp.edu,comp.ai,aus.ai
Subject: Re: PROLOG in the "real" world?
Message-ID: <1991Oct7.172851.21163@athena.cs.uga.edu>
Date: 7 Oct 91 17:28:51 GMT
References: <1991Oct04.142838.29652@eng.umd.edu> <1991Oct4.173827.14992@athena.cs.uga.edu> <1991Oct07.133749.15786@eng.umd.edu>
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens
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