Re: peasant revolt against DrScheme!

[sperber@informatik.uni-tuebingen.de (Michael Sperber [Mr. Preprocessor])]

>>>>> "Shriram" == Shriram Krishnamurthi <sk@cs.brown.edu> writes:

Shriram> Michael,

>> Factorial, no doubt.  

Shriram> Thanks.  You, and the others who have replied, have all nicely slipped
Shriram> into the trap.  It's interesting, too, how the replies I've received
Shriram> don't just say "factorial"; they always add a note of absolutely
Shriram> certainty to it.

Shriram> First, an incindiary remark (just in case you weren't paying
Shriram> attention): Factorial is the worst first example of recursion.  ...
Shriram> Except for fibonacci, which is even worse.

Well, it may be the first, but I don't think it's an especially bad
example.  It's worked reasonably well for us twice in a row.  The nice
thing about it is that students have seen the definition before, and
by week 3, after having freaked over all the stuff they don't know
yet, they're usually very glad to see something they're familiar
with.

Especially when you find yourself having to talk about inductive
proofs, it's helpful to start with natural numbers rather than
throwing data structures into the mix right away.

-- 
Cheers =8-} Mike
Friede, Völkerverständigung und überhaupt blabla