There's this summation notation that these people who see programming as math and get excited about recursion forget about too.

I think recursion is just another tool in the toolbox: sometimes, some solutions are easier to think of recursively, and so it makes sense to use it, at least for the first prototype.

But yeah, using it systematically (in a non-functional language) is unwise.

Hey, other kinds of needs can do and should care. Recursion is a very interesting perspective to apply to a problem and gratifying in its own right.