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From: John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: OT: Examples for teaching recursion in programming (was: Re: Warning - Serious 'sudo' Flaw Compromises Security)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2025 15:47:18 -0700
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On Thu, 16 Oct 2025 10:13:17 +0100
Nuno Silva <nunojsilva@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> >> ... for classroom purposes it'd probably be best to find something
> >> with both *A.* practical application in a real-world context ...
> >> and *B.* a real case to be made for a recursive solution beyond
> >> simple novelty value.  
> >
> > How about parsing JSON and XML, then? They are so heavily used in
> > real-world software development these days, it becomes helpful to
> > understand how to deal with them.  
> 
> That, at least at first sight, appears to be in a different ballpark
> for the complexity of the problem that has to be understood.

Yeah, it's a puzzler - parsing in general probably *is* a good example
of useful applications for recursion, but a lot of the applications
themselves are large and hairy enough that you might be hard-pressed to
use them as a teaching aid. But then, is there a simpler example that
isn't just a toy language...?