The recursion tracing exercises are surprisingly effective. The method takes a powerful abstract process and distills it into 2 steps: the base case and the recursive case. I initially imagined tracing recursion to involve a hefty amount of writing with lines everywhere not realizing the point was to not duplicate work you had previously done. After the first few examples done on your own the process becomes so natural that it's internalized without even realizing it at first. Now considering any recursive method the base case comes flying out easier than an expletive when stubbing your toe and this organization allows an organized focus towards the recursive case.
I have to wonder how long we will go while only seeing these 2 case recursive functions. I can't imagine even a large segment of recursive methods are organized so simply.
No comments:
Post a Comment