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I disagree with the reasoning for why factorial is a bad example. Factorial is very simple to explain as a mathematical function, requires very little prior kno
by JulianChastain 4y ago
I disagree with the reasoning for why factorial is a bad example. Factorial is very simple to explain as a mathematical function, requires very little prior knowledge. When asked why you aren't allowed to implement it as a loop, the response I was given was that you very simply define factorial in a self referential way (0! = 1 and n! = n * (n - 1)!), and is there any way you could implement the function in a way that clearly expresses that definition? At least for me this function was a fantastic intro to recursion
- __t__ 4y agoI agree factorial is very clearly defined with self-references but I think that the answers have no clear meaning and that's why its not an optimal way of teaching recursion. Teaching examples that have meaningful answers IMO allow for much better reasoning
- ledauphin 4y agoagreed - it's the intuitiveness of the answer to the example that is so critical to building understanding. When you want to teach a method, it's much better if the student already knows what the result should be by a different method, so they can see how the new method is different than the one they know.