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Wow, hmm.. I worked a MEDITECH a long time ago, and they actually used a programming language, MAGIC, that you couldn't recurse in. It used macro code expansion
by ericb 16y ago
Wow, hmm.. I worked a MEDITECH a long time ago, and they actually used a programming language, MAGIC, that you couldn't recurse in. It used macro code expansion to take MAGIC code and output into a lower level language and recursion would make it loop infinitely. Maybe at MEDITECH it wouldn't have been so academic.
Edit: Not sure why this got downvoted, but in their internal programming course they talked about the recursion problem explicitly--I'm not making this up, as crazy as it sounds.
If you don't believe me, here is a link to a blog post with someone else mentioning it in the comments:
http://htmlcoderhelper.com/what-is-the-worst-programming-language-you-ever-worked-with/ http://htmlcoderhelper.com/what-is-the-worst-programming-lan...
- axod 16y agoWhy is it an issue though? Recursion is an optional thing some programmers like using. It's not necessary. edit: rather than downmod me to -1 for stating a fact, why not reply?
- smanek 16y agoThat's like saying integers are an optional thing, and it's no big deal if your programming language doesn't have them. True, they aren't necessary (look at peano arith or pure lambda calc) - but it sure makes things a lot easier. It's much more concise and intuitive to write some search or divide and conquer algos recursively than imperatively.
- axod 16y agojavascript doesn't have an integer type. Possibly it makes things easier for some algorithms, but as I said, it is optional. It's not rocket science to rewrite any algorithm that relies on recursion to not need it.