A Beginner's Guide to Tackling Recursion
By Al Sweigart

Recursion has an intimidating reputation for being the advanced skill of coding sorcerers. But in this tutorial we look behind the curtain of this formidable technique to discover the simple ideas under it.

If you've ever said or thought the words "recursion is confusing", this tutorial is for you.

Through hands-on exercises in the interactive shell, we'll answer the following questions:

• What is recursion, and when is it a good idea and bad idea to use it?
• What are all the confusing ways that recursion is commonly taught?
• What's a stack, and what's the call stack?
• What are stack overflows, and how do we avoid them?
• Do some problems require recursion? How do I transform recursive code into iterative code, and vice versa?
• What are some common recusive problems in whiteboard coding interviews?
• What is memoization and tail call optimization?
• How do I draw that cool-looking fractal artwork using recursion?

We'll cover a number of common recursive algorithms:

• Factorial and Fibonacci calculation
• Exponent calculation
• The Towers of Hanoi
• The flood fill algorithm
• Binary search
• Generating permutations and combinations

This tutorial is for a wide range of developers. Beginners who only understand the basics of Python will be able to follow along. Experienced developers who have hoped no one would notice the recursive-coding gap in their knowledge will be able to breath with relief after taking this tutorial. All that is required is a willingness to learn, and a willingness to have the willingness to learn, and a willingness to have the willingness to have the willingness to learn, and... so on.

Setup Instructions

https://inventwithpython.com/blog/2018/08/24/pyohio-2018-recursion-tutorial/