Summary

We've covered a lot of ground in this chapter. Recursion in Clojure, as in many functional languages, is a central concept. On the one hand, it can be necessary for some fairly simple looping situations. In those cases, recur, whether used with loop or in a recursive function, can almost be seen as just "Clojure's syntax for looping." Understanding tail recursion is important for avoiding mistakes, but otherwise, it is relatively simple. On the other hand, recursion can be an extremely powerful way of solving complex problems. If it makes your head spin from time to time, that's normal: recursion is more than just a technique. It's a way of thinking about problem solving. Don't worry, though. In the next chapter, you are going to be able to practice your recursion skills some more!

In the next chapter, we will continue exploring the recursive techniques and focus on lazy evaluation.