It's ok, the stack overflow is the exit condition.
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
493 points (98.2% liked)
Programmer Humor
35334 readers
1 users here now
Post funny things about programming here! (Or just rant about your favourite programming language.)
Rules:
- Posts must be relevant to programming, programmers, or computer science.
- No NSFW content.
- Jokes must be in good taste. No hate speech, bigotry, etc.
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
File "<python-input-0>", line 2, in a
a()
~^^
[Previous line repeated 988 more times]
RecursionError: maximum recursion depth exceededEven better when instead of recursive function calls, it a recursive process fork!
Knock knock!
Race Condition!
Who's there?
Even better:
Before forking locally, fork it on another machine!
Insert evil laugh here
the non-recursive part of this image is mildlyinfuriating
That's the static variable in the function sticking around and watching the madness unfold.
Wait, is it possible to create a real infinite droste effect with vector graphics since they aren’t limited by resolution?
As long as you can do recursion in the xml it should be possible to make an svg that’s “infinitely” recursive yes?
(I have no experience on this topic)
Depends on how the format represents the image. My impression is that it's in a way that's implicitly limited to smooth (so definitely not fractal) curves.
You're never going to fit infinite detail in finite information, of course. At best you can loop through the finite information.
Would it be an infinite file then? I guess unless you restrain the max file size. But as you're zooming in, it will keep making more microscopic image, it's kind of like a function that keeps approaching x value yet never reached it.
My brain hurts
Well the svg file itself wouldn’t be, but whatever tries to render the image might think the file is infinite since it’d loop around forever. Come to think of it, I’d imaging there are probably safeguards in place to prevent svg files like this hypothetical one from being opened because they’d run as an infinite loop
My exit condition is when the stack overflows
I'm reminded of Matt Parker demonstrating recursion in Microsoft PowerPoint:
Amazing. OC?
Nope, stolen from a Telegram group chat, not sure where it's originally from.