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From: rob@kaa.eng.ohio-state.edu (Rob Carriere)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.fortran,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Should I convert FORTRAN code to C?
Message-ID: <358@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 6 Jul 88 09:01:13 GMT
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In article <879@garth.UUCP> smryan@garth.UUCP (Steven Ryan) writes:
>In Algorithmic Language and Program Development, Bauer and Wossner, they cite
>Paterson and Hewitt as proving, essentially, recursion is more powerful than
>iteration.
>
I don't know the learned gentlemen, but it is certainly true that for
anything that can run on a computer, recursion is *at most* as strong
as iteration.  Proof: the CPU is an iterative device, not a recursive
one (it iterates through its' microcode or eqv) and it can excecute
your program.  Since a computer with unbounded memory is as strong as
a Universal Turing machine, I have this nagging feeling that the proof
of P&H was intended for a much more restricted environment than either
B&W or the poster are (is) assuming.  If I'm wrong, *do* tell me, this
sounds interesting.

Rob Carriere
"He iterated until he had no recourse but to recurse his fate."