How to understand the base case of a recursion

[kinestheticlearning]

I like your diagnostics of various misunderstandings (or 'thinking errors') that prevent people from constructing a recursive solution for a given task.

@bh

• Some people don't get that a base case is a perfectly valid argument to the function in itself, SNIP SNIP

• Many people don't understand that not all recursive calls are tail recursive. SNIP SNIP they think that when you reach the base case of the recursion, the procedure's work is done.

I think I am both some people and many people. : - | and I have additionally lots of trouble taking on faith that you deem necessary in order to be able to write one's own recursive program:

@bh

I guess some people do learn to understand recursion by tracing the code, but I find with students that that doesn't help them write their own recursive programs to do something different. For that, you have to learn to take on faith that the recursive call will do what it claims to do