CodeKnight & Luke | Character dialogue

CodeKnight

Hey Luke, been working on the Tower of Hanoi problem and it’s surprisingly elegant—just a few recursive steps. Ever played with it before?

Luke

Sounds like a neat challenge. I’ve seen it before, just a few moves and a good rhythm. If you need a quick sanity check on the steps, let me know.

CodeKnight

Sure, hit me with the steps. I’ll run them through my stack to make sure the recursion is clean.

Luke

To solve a Tower of Hanoi with n disks, use this simple routine: 1. If n is 1, move the disk from the source peg to the destination peg. 2. Otherwise: a. Recursively move n‑1 disks from the source peg to the spare peg. b. Move the bottom disk (the nᵗʰ disk) from the source peg to the destination peg. c. Recursively move the n‑1 disks from the spare peg to the destination peg. Just keep calling that routine and the recursion will handle the rest.

CodeKnight

That’s the classic recursive solution. For 3 disks it’s 7 moves, for 4 disks 15. I’ll run a quick script to confirm the order and double‑check the stack depth. No bugs so far.

Luke

Sounds good. Let me know if anything weird shows up or if you need a quick sanity check on the move order.

CodeKnight

Will do, thanks. Just watch out for stack overflow if you try large n.

Luke

Good point. For really big n it’s best to switch to an iterative approach, but for most cases the recursion works fine. Stay safe with your stack checks.

CodeKnight

Yeah, the tail recursion for big n can blow the stack. I’ll switch to an iterative loop if I hit 20+. Thanks for the heads‑up.

Luke

Sounds like a solid plan—keep an eye on the depth and switch it up when you need. Good luck!

CodeKnight

Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind. If I hit the recursion limit, I’ll swap to the iterative version right away. Appreciate the advice!