Fibonacci series recursion error

[Hans Georg Schaathun]

On 02 May 2011 08:56:57 GMT, Steven D'Aprano
  <steve+comp.lang.python at pearwood.info> wrote:
:  I see your smiley, but there are a number of similar series as Fibonacci, 
:  with the same recurrence but different starting values, or similar but 
:  slightly different recurrences. E.g. Lucas, primefree, Pell, Padovan and 
:  Perrin numbers.

Well, Fibonacci isn't one unique sequence.  Any sequence satisfying
f(n) = f(n-1) + f(n-2) is /a/ Fibonacci sequence.  Regardless of 
starting values.  At least according to some authors.

Ian Andersen (A First Course in Combinatorial Mathematics) prefer 
the sequence 1,2,3,5 ...

Cormen, Leiserson, Rivest (Introduction to Algorithms) prefer
0,1,1,2, ... (although they also start the indexing at 0).

Penguin, Dict. of Mathematics prefer 1,1,2,3,5 but they also
suggest 0,1,1,2,3, ...

In short, don't assume that a person talking about Fibonacci
numbers assume the same base cases as you do.

-- 
:-- Hans Georg