Learning Java Functional Programming

Understanding recursion

Recursion can be understood at several different levels. A simplistic understanding involves knowing the definition of recursion. A method that calls itself is recursive. This understanding is not particularly useful.

Another level of understanding is being able to take a recursive algorithm and implement it using recursion. This is often a fairly direct process, and can be performed without truly understanding recursion.

A mathematical understanding occurs when one can clearly see how the recursive invocation works at a functional level and how local variables are handled. This is an important level of understanding to achieve where one is better able to create and maintain recursive application.

A more complete understanding ...