On May 29, 4:46 pm, Chris Angelico <ros...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 7:38 AM, rantingrick <rantingr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Yes but understanding of this sort is very general ESPECIALLY in the > > case of destroying data! > > > What are the limits of the recursion? What forces can act on the > > recursion to stop it? If (for example) I know that a "while loop" will > > continue forever until "something" stops it then i really don't know > > enough about while loops to start using them safely do i? > > That's true of anything. If I turn on the light switch, I expect there > to be a limit to the amount of light it produces; I don't want a > household fluro to produce the intensity of the worklights in a > theatre. Ought I to get the technical specs and find out exactly how > many lumens will be produced, or can I safely power it on in the > expectation that it will do the obvious thing?
That is a very good argument however it does not consider the fact of "technical users" verses "non-technical users". Anyone can be expected to understand the consequenses of switching on a lightbulb (even a child) because the action requires no logical thinking abilites... simply flip it and forget it. HOWEVER not everyone understands the consequeses of recursively deleting a directory... or whatever that means in the current context. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list