On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 12:12 AM, andrea crotti <andrea.crott...@gmail.com> wrote: > def fib(n): > if n <= 1: > return 1 > return fib(n-1) + fib(n-2) > > @memoize > def fib_memoized(n): > if n <= 1: > return 1 > return fib_memoized(n-1) + fib_memoized(n-2) > > > The second fibonacci looks exactly the same but while the first is > very slow and would generate a stack overflow the second doesn't..
Trouble is, you're starting with a pretty poor algorithm. It's easy to improve on what's poor. Memoization can still help, but I would start with a better algorithm, such as: def fib(n): if n<=1: return 1 a,b=1,1 for i in range(1,n,2): a+=b b+=a return b if n%2 else a def fib(n,cache=[1,1]): if n<=1: return 1 while len(cache)<=n: cache.append(cache[-1] + cache[-2]) return cache[n] Personally, I don't mind (ab)using default arguments for caching, but you could do the same sort of thing with a decorator if you prefer. I think the non-decorated non-recursive version is clear and efficient though. ChrisA -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list