Dijkstra was right – recursion should not be difficult
This article touches on some good points. In particular, the part about trusting that the function will do the right thing is something that people who already understand recursion take for granted but is extremely crucial. However:<p>"Let's tweak our sum function a a bit: ... That's it."<p>I really dislike articles that earnestly try to convince the audience that some subject which many find extremely difficult to understand is actually very simple. My impression is that the intent is to help people who lack the confidence to engage with the topic, but in my opinion the exact opposite effect is achieved. At that point in the article, nothing about recursion had been explained and it's not reasonable to expect someone who previously did not understand recursion to read that section and come to the conclusion "that's it!" Instead they'll be sitting there, extremely confused by something which they're being reassured is actually quite simple. This is not going to help their confidence.<p>So while I appreciate the author's intent, I think that someone who is struggling to understand recursion might leave this article worse off than when they started. And I wish this trope would disappear from tutorials.