Recursion is a powerful programming technique. A function that calls itself recursively not only saves programming effort and avoids repetition but it can also be used to navigate complex structures such as Trees and Class Hierarchies.

This is an intermediate-to-advanced level course. It is aimed at programmers who can already program confidently in one or more programming languages. It is not appropriate for beginners.

The courses includes numerous short sample programs to show how recursion works. There are samples written in C, Ruby and C#. However, you don’t need to program in those languages to follow this course. Recursion works the same way in all mainstream programming languages. This course explains the theory and the practice of recursion. You can use the techniques that are taught to write recursive functions in whichever language you prefer: C, C#, Java, JavaScript, Python, Basic, Pascal and others. The course is not about any specific language.

This is what you will learn…

• What is recursion?

• How variables are scoped in recursive functions

• How recursive functions return values

• The Stack and Stack Frames

• Debugging recursive functions

• Recursion v Iteration

• Stack Corruption, and how to avoid it

• Infinite Recursion, and how to avoid it

• Recursing Fibonacci Numbers

• Recursing a Class Hierarchy

• Trees and recursion

• Navigating subdirectories recursively

• Code samples provided in C, Java, Ruby...