New Syntax For Recursion

2025-08-18

Aug 18, 2025

I’m playing with new syntax for recursion, using keywords “break-down” and “stop-when” and “decompose”.

Here’s an example of what it might look like for factorial

\(\begin{align} &\texttt{break-down factorial(n) \{} \notag \\ &\quad \texttt{stop-when (n} \leq \texttt{1) : \{} \notag \\ &\quad\quad \texttt{1} \notag \\ &\quad \texttt{\}} \notag \\ &\quad \texttt{decompose: \{} \notag \\ &\quad\quad \texttt{n} \times \texttt{factorial(n - 1)} \notag \\ &\quad \texttt{\}} \notag \\ &\texttt{\}} \notag \end{align}\)

And here’s an example for fibonacci

\(\begin{align} &\texttt{break-down fibonacci(n) \{} \notag \\ &\quad \texttt{stop-when (n} \leq \texttt{1) : \{} \notag \\ &\quad\quad \texttt{n} \notag \\ &\quad \texttt{\}} \notag \\ &\quad \texttt{decompose: \{} \notag \\ &\quad\quad \texttt{fibonacci(n-1) + fibonacci(n-2)} \notag \\ &\quad \texttt{\}} \notag \\ &\texttt{\}} \notag \end{align}\)

Larger examples are mutilated by Substack’s editor. I’ve included a 3rd example - binary search - in the following .PDF