We all love recursion! Don't we?
Consider a three-parameter recursive function w(a, b, c):
if a <= 0 or b <= 0 or c <= 0, then w(a, b, c) returns:
1
if a > 20 or b > 20 or c > 20, then w(a, b, c) returns:
w(20, 20, 20)
if a < b and b < c, then w(a, b, c) returns:
w(a, b, c-1) + w(a, b-1, c-1) - w(a, b-1, c)
otherwise it returns:
w(a-1, b, c) + w(a-1, b-1, c) + w(a-1, b, c-1) - w(a-1, b-1, c-1)
This is an easy function to implement. The problem is, if implemented directly, for moderate values of a, b and c (for example, a = 15, b = 15, c = 15), the program takes hours to run because of the massive recursion.