Visualstudio-docs: Very bad example of recursion

Created on 22 Feb 2018 · 9Comments · Source: MicrosoftDocs/visualstudio-docs

If you have to explain factorial to explain recursion that means example is wrong. There are so many intuitive examples you could have given but you chose to explain docs to math major instead of JS programmer.

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jakubrpawlowski

👎1 👍1

Most helpful comment

const countDownFrom = num => {
  if (num>0) {
    console.log(num)
    return countDownFrom(num-1)
  }
}

countDownFrom(5)

Sorry I don't want to be rude. I'm just giving feedback that the docs should have an example that's easy to understand for everybody. Then maybe your example could go afterwards once everybody gets the initial idea.

jakubrpawlowski on 2 Mar 2018

👍2

All 9 comments

@bterlson for input

Mikejo5000 on 2 Mar 2018

Factorial is a canonical example when teaching recursion as far as I know. If someone wants to suggest a better alternative I'm sure we'd be open to it, but I can't come up with anything clearer off the top of my head.

bterlson on 2 Mar 2018

❤1 👍1

const countDownFrom = num => {
  if (num>0) {
    console.log(num)
    return countDownFrom(num-1)
  }
}

countDownFrom(5)

jakubrpawlowski on 2 Mar 2018

👍2

Yep

Aditya7861 on 5 Mar 2018

@jakubrpawlowski do you think it's confusing that countDownFrom is not a case when you would use recursion in reality? A maximally practical and simple example seems ideal, just not sure countDownFrom fits that bill.

bterlson on 6 Mar 2018

@jakubrpawlowski great example, thanks!

425devon on 9 Mar 2018

Planning to close this unless we have a simple real-world example that I can add to the docs.

Mikejo5000 on 14 Mar 2018

This issue is captured in a work item for our backlog.

Mikejo5000 on 31 Mar 2018

@jakubrpawlowski is right. The Microsoft docs are infamous for containing overly complex code to make it more "realistic", instead of just explaining the actual functionality of something with easy examples. A countdown example is a great way of explaining recursive functions. In fact, that's what they do in many other places like in this article (https://www.sitepoint.com/recursion-functional-javascript/).

First teach the bare minimum to give the reader a basic understanding of how it works, then after that you can start giving more advanced examples that requires knowledge about factorials for example.