"Marco Mariani" <marc....arta.com> wrote:
> I don't see how my answer is in any way worse than those based on > lambda. Maybe I'm just envious because when I was his age I couldn't > google for answers. He should at least be able to do that, shouldn't he? > But wait. That would mean understanding what a factorial is. That would > require a second search, or a textbook, or an understanding of > arithmetics before programming with or without recursion. Should we > blame the teachers? Yes. And burn their cars to get their attention! Asking someone to write a factorial algorithm before he knows WTF a factorial "is", is either insane, or the ultimate demonstration of deliberate lack of cooperation and coordination between departments. I feel kind of strongly about this ever since, as a student, the physics people expected me to use mathematics that I had not been taught yet... ;-) I shall try to refrain from commenting on the concept of introducing recursion into a first course in CS - I am too much tainted by my ability to mentally "see" the stack growth in a small processor to be qualified to comment. - Hendrik -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
