I think that the confuse comes from the fact that one wants to mix both views; after all, I don&#x27;t remember see anyone being confused bu the classic recursive definitions (Fibonacci, factorial) in my school days. IIRC the factorial function is introduced in high school. It can literally be understood by a <i>kid</i>.<p>I believe the reason why people want to expose both views at the same time is that the math view doesn&#x27;t really explains &quot;how it works&quot; as far as CS is concerned.<p>As far as I&#x27;m concerned, I can&#x27;t imagine programming without the knowledge of how things work at assembly level. I think I would feel so crippled in my understanding that I would want to learn about assembly... again. I would probably not stand working with a machine that works on magic.