On 21/08/2010 00:17, Ben Finney wrote:
Steven D'Aprano<st...@remove-this-cybersource.com.au> writes:
On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:00:16 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:
Recursion can be quite a trick to get your mind round at first
Really? Do people actually find the *concept* of recursion to be
tricky?
Evidently so. It's folk wisdom that some adults find recursion an easy
concept, and those people will find programming significantly easier;
and the majority of people have a great deal of difficulty with
recursion and so find programming correspondingly difficult.
There is evidence that the phenomenon is at least significant and
measurable<URL:http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=53033>.
Eh? The cited abstract does not support your conjecture.
I am rather more taken with the mapper/packer contrast explained in
http://the-programmers-stone.com/the-original-talks/day-1-thinking-about-thinking/
There is all manner of speculation as to what might cause this divide in
capability, but precious little scientific research has been done on the
differences between such people AFAICT.
I agree about the lack of research. And while it is a given that some
will be better than others,
I suspect that research into teaching and coaching methods and cultural
expectations will
prove more fruitful that looking at differences between learners.
Regards
Ian
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