
Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? - oooooppmba
I have a basic understanding of python, but would like to understand really intuitively how recursion works. are there any good introductory books that teach about recursion?
======
niftich
I recommend this hacker news thread:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11934434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11934434)

I also found this book helpful, when I was starting out with experience with
imperative languages and thinking iteratively:

[https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Recursively-Java-Eric-
Robert...](https://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Recursively-Java-Eric-
Roberts/dp/0471701467)

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bzalasky
The book you're looking for is The Little Schemer (just noticed another
commenter suggested this as well). Even if you're not that interested in LISP,
you'll come away from this book with a solid grasp of "programs as recursive
functions." I found that the format of the book lends itself well to reading
during a commute. It's easy to pick up and work through a few pages. If you
get to a section that you don't understand right away, slow down and make sure
you get it before moving forward.

[https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/little-
schemer](https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/little-schemer)

~~~
sn9
Seconded.

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deepaksurti
I would recommend Chapter 8 of `Common Lisp: A Gentle Introduction` by David
T. [1]

It is the most lucid explanation of recursion using the story-telling format.

After working through this chapter, I have never failed to write/understand
programs using recursion.

[1]
[https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/](https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/LispBook/)

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wtf_is_frp
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbWb0u8bJrU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbWb0u8bJrU)

Recursion is a very simple concept and really doubt you will find a whole book
dedicated to it.

Checkout Computer Systems: A programmers approach

It explains what is happening in memory when you call a function.

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azeirah
Try a lisp-book, they are often heavy on recursion. One book I see recommended
very often is "the little schemer", I want to pick it up some day, it'll teach
you about scheme, computation and recursion.

I haven't read any books about recursion itself however, only books that teach
recursion amongst other topics.

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siscia
Your best shot is to use paper and pencil. Write it down the call stack and
see what happens...

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ehudla
Goedel, Escher, Bach. Nothing comes close. It will blow your mind.

~~~
selmat
[http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/humanities-and-social-
science...](http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/humanities-and-social-
sciences/godel-escher-bach/)

