4 ms·

Loops are how most people think. They're also how most CPUs think. It seems to me logical for both parties to express programs mostly using loops.

• timtadh 16y ago
  Except there is no difference at the machine instruction level between a recursive and iterative approaches. They are isomorphic to each other. That is why you can implement all recursive algorithms using an explicit stack and a loop and all iterative algorithms as recursive functions.
  • axod 16y ago
    Huh? There's a lot of difference in the unoptimized form of recursion - namely stack usage. Yes you can hack together tail call recursion to try and make recursion perform as well as iteration does, but what really is the point?
    • deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    • eru 16y ago
      The concept of recursion in is independent of computers. Recursion is just the mathematicians idea of how to repeat get arbitrarily big objects out of limited definitions. Loops are a just a special case, and not really closer to the hardware. Branches and jumps are closer to the hardware. "Yes you can hack together [a compiler] to try and make [structured programming] perform as well as [goto] does, but what really is the point?"