Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion?

Posted by oooooppmba on Sunday June 19, 2016 @04:03PM
from the ask-hn dept.

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?

( 10 comments | 6 points | on HN )

Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by niftich on Sunday June 19, 2016 @05:19PM (#11934718)

I recommend this hacker news thread:

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...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by bzalasky on Monday June 20, 2016 @01:08AM (#11936167)

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

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Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by sn9 on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @06:31PM (#11949977)

Seconded.

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Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by deepaksurti on Wednesday June 22, 2016 @03:47AM (#11952167)

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/

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Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by wtf_is_frp on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @01:12PM (#11947369)

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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Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by azeirah on Sunday June 19, 2016 @05:17PM (#11934714)

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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Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by siscia on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @03:12AM (#11944001)

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

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Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by ehudla on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @03:16AM (#11944013)

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

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Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by selmat on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @03:30AM (#11944058)

http://ocw.mit.edu/high-school/humanities-and-social-science...

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Re:Ask HN: Best books on understanding recursion? by ehudla on Tuesday June 21, 2016 @04:26AM (#11944313)

And speaking of DRH (Doug Hofstadter) in his Metamagical Themas collection, the last three (?) chapters are a quick and delightful introduction to Lisp and recursion.

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