Recursion part 2

Recursion is: see previous post on recursion. No really; In a nutshell that's recursion! Recursion is having faith that a problem has already been solved and letting it solve itself using that knowledge.

Ok, so there's a little more to it than that but since I had already made a post involving recursion, it seemed appropriate to define it that way. Recursion is a very powerful tool in any programmer's toolbox.

When a recursive function or method is executed there is generally a condition to be met or a check to determine whether the recursive case or the base case should be executed. If the recursive case is needed the function calls it self, and stores the calls in memory. This continues until all that's left is the base case. Then the base case is resolved. Once this happens, all the previous recursive cases can then be resolved with respect to that base case.

The reason that this is so brilliant is because a lot of problems actually turn out to be the same problem wrapped up within themselves many times. This variety of problem can seem quite large and daunting when viewed as a whole. However, the power of recursion allows for a very useful way of modelling such a problem.

A common example of recursion that many people will have seen is factorials in math. Each time a factorial is increased, it becomes the product of the new number and the previous factorial total. This is a recursive structure because each factorial can be broken down in such a way.

At first I struggled with the concept of recursion, but being exposed to it repeatedly has greatly helped my comprehension. The weekly labs in particular have been a great opportunity to learn recursion with the help of peers and teaching assistants.