Recursion is the idea that a function calls itself. Pretty simple, right? It’s used to take a big problem and start breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces (“Divide and Conquer”) and continuing to feed their solutions back into the original function until some sort of answer is achieved and the whole chain unwinds.
In computer science, divide and conquer (D&C) is an important algorithm design paradigm based on multi-branched recursion. A divide and conquer algorithm works by recursively breaking down a problem into two or more sub-problems of the same (or related) type, until these become simple enough to be solved directly. The solutions to the sub-problems are then combined to give a solution to the original problem.
There’s also a right and wrong way to use recursion. The fact is, any problem you can solve recursively you can also solve using the iterators that you know and love. If you find yourself saying “why didn’t I just use a
while loop here?” then you probably should have. You won’t often end up using a recursive solution to a problem, but you should get a feel for when it might be a good idea. Some problems also break down into far too many pieces and totally overwhelm your computer’s memory. There’s a balance.
In this brief lesson, you’ll get a chance to learn more about when and how to use recursion and then in the next project you will get the chance to apply some of that (since it probably won’t really stick until you’ve had a chance to try it).
Look through these now and then use them to test yourself after doing the assignment
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