Deconstructed recursion

The last two weeks of assignments in my classes have been about recursion.  This week for our assignment we had to rewrite a linked list class so that each method used recursion.  

Adding and Removing made the most sense.  It was easy to find the bad cases and then call the method again.  I used a helper function for each method, made it easier to comply with other parameters from the assignment.

I'm still confused on the formatting of some things.  I had used a few else statements after the if statement that was funding the base case, but had to remove most as it was causing an endless loop.  

I also had to rewrite the reverse method a few times until I remembered to include a temporary counting variable.  Will have to find more leet code problems to test myself going forward.

Parallel Problems

I've been working on a chess idea for the AT Proto, and now it turns out my final project for my Intro to CS class is to build a chess variant program.   

On the plus side I inadvertently designed at least one part of my program a month before my class even began, but it also means I need to redirect some energy into rethinking how I am gonna structure the game.  

Should be fun 

Overcomplicating Recursion

As I study recursion and begin applying it in my homework, I notice some similarities, or at least tenuous connections between recursion steps and troubleshooting.

IT support should work on the basis of elimination of a class of issues at a time, until you drill down to the root issue.  I recommend reading DevOps Troubleshooting by Kyle Rankin for more on this subject.

Recursion looks to eliminate a choice, usually between two options, until it returns your root cause, or base case.  

I can't comprehend this List

More accurate, would be to say I don't like listening comprehension at the moment.  I'd rather write more verbose code than use it. Which means I need to push myself to use it more and get better with it.  

Right now the issue lays in knowing how to connect certain variables and their respective positions.  I'm sure my upcoming assignments will have need of it and that's frightening.  Oh well, til tomorrow. 

Never Unpickle Unknown Data

Title is from a recent lecture.  But a good piece of advice when learning anything programming/technology.  Implicit trust of objects and code is an even scarier proposition with all the garbage auto-complete code that is out there right now.