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Next: Bibliography Up: Recursion, Iteration and Functional Previous: 7 Iteration and Recursion

8 Summary

Functional languages such as Scheme and J are useful in teaching recursion and iteration to introductory students. The exercise of writing the continuation of each recursive call in a definition forces students to think about the definition. Students also find that the alternate view of recursion as a composition of continuation functions gives a new perspective on recursive definitions. Identifying tail-recursive definitions or transforming non tail-recursive definitions into tail-recursive definitions is a useful exercise which helps enhance understanding of the algorithm. This author has found Scheme and J to be equally effective in the teaching of recursion and iteration. Both languages have significant advantages, particularly when used for exposition, over imperative languages.


next up previous
Next: Bibliography Up: Recursion, Iteration and Functional Previous: 7 Iteration and Recursion
2002-11-26