Timeline for Analogy for teaching recursion
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 20, 2018 at 2:10 | comment | added | Carl Offner | It is cute. But aside from the fact that it's not really correct, as already noted, it really describes a recursive data structure. Now recursive programs are naturally used to process recursive data structures. But in my experience, recursive definitions of recursive data structures are even more magical and mysterious to students than recursive functions are. Of course, once you get the idea you realize how natural and powerful this all becomes. But for undergraduates, from what I've seen, it's extremely sophisticated. | |
| Jan 13, 2018 at 7:15 | comment | added | Wildcard | @BennettBrown, I think it's a good analogy, and can be accompanied by a statement that this isn't a real definition of Judaism, just a useful analogy for demonstrating recursion. | |
| Aug 8, 2017 at 4:16 | comment | added | manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact | In addition to patrilineal descent (many Reform Jews today, not accepted by Orthodox - and also debatable as to patrilineal vs. matrilineal before the Torah was given to the Jewish people, but I digress) and conversions (which obviously break the algorithm), this leaves open the question of whether Abraham himself was Jewish. As with so many other things in computer science, the edge cases will get you every time! | |
| Jun 15, 2017 at 19:42 | comment | added | JPearse | I believe Dr Burch says somewhere, he overheard it at a dinner party and it's not a canonical method of determining whether someone is Jewish. Just a neat analogy for recursion. | |
| Jun 15, 2017 at 7:30 | comment | added | Bennett Brown | I'm Jewish and my daughter just had a bat mitzvah, but her mother is not Jewish. Many if not most Jews don't follow the custom given in this answer. It is a recent custom relative to Torah, which describes many non-Jewish women having Jewish children with a Jew. My daughter wants to be a software engineer and I think this example would make her feel badly. Not to expect political correctness, but I'd avoid this example because it misrepresents Judaism to non-Jews. Then again, the rule is absolutely recognizable to any Jew and anyone like my daughter can let it roll off. Thanks for sharing! | |
| Jun 14, 2017 at 17:02 | comment | added | Ben I.♦ | That's a really clear example. Nice! | |
| Jun 14, 2017 at 17:00 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 14, 2017 at 17:10 | |||||
| Jun 14, 2017 at 16:58 | history | answered | JPearse | CC BY-SA 3.0 |