Programming Language History

[Jon maddog Hall]

ken at jots.org said:
>  One of them was obviously supposed to be solved as a recursive problem, but
> I realized that you could use the ol' (n^2+n)/2=(say,a triangle made of
> checkers, with "n" checkers on a side) equation, and save an awful lot of
> writing.  [I always hated computer exams that required writing code with a
> pencil.]

I think you also saved a lot of computation, given a reasonably sized triangle,
which is why I always told my students to look for the most efficient algorithm
and worry about the niceties of which language you use second.

md
-- 
Jon "maddog" Hall
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