this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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if else if else if else (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago by likeaduck@programming.dev to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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Crosspost: https://lemmy.ml/post/488358

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[–] kogasa@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

There's no formal reason why the input to a recursive function must be a "smaller" or "simpler" version of itself, that's just a way of explaining it intuitively/informally. You need to reduce the "complexity" (meant informally as 'deviation from a trivial case') at every step (only) if you want to the algorithm to actually finish.