Gordon Couger writes

Oz:
yes, but you has the x-y data so calculating the area is a simple
simpson's rule. NO recursion.

As I recall she ask for help and I looked at what she had and solved the
problem with out thinking much about it. I saw triangles and rectangles and
summed them up. I used recursion because I was in the middle of a hydrology
problem that I was solving recursively and it was the method that came to
mind. This was something we did one afternoon after coffee. She had a
problem and I made it go away.

Sounds like maths education is a problem in the states, too.

--
Oz
This post is worth absolutely nothing and is probably fallacious.
Note: soon (maybe already) only posts via despammed.com will be accepted.