Re: Detecting endless recursion?

  John commented:
>> I've implemented my own programming language compiler and byte-code
>> interpreter. Since this language is intended for beginners, I'd like
>> it to be robust. When a user creates a function that calls itself
>> unconditionally, like:
>
> [The limit you one is one deeper than the deepest program that's not
> stuck in a loop. My impression is that other than artifical examples
> like Ackerman's function, real code doesn't nest very deeply so an
> arbitrary limit like 100 deep should do the trick. -John]


I thought about that, yes. Trouble is, whatever limit I choose, there
will be people who need more but who aren't writing mistaken
code. Many modern GUI hierarchies, for example, use recursion to walk
down the hierarchy. 100 is definitely possible there. Also, since my
users will be beginners, I can't rely on them writing efficient code
(and actually, I don't want to). So, using "real code" as a stick to
measure by will probably lead to a lot of frustrated newbies.


So, for other cases, this would be a practical approach. But in this
particular instance, I'd rather avoid that.


But thanks, anyway. You phrased the problem in a way that sent me
thinking about other approaches...


Cheers,
-- M. Uli Kusterer
http://www.zathras.de <-- hopefully out of its downtime soon

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