Repetition & Recursion

Recursion is an important approach that data scientists can take to wrestle with complex algorithmic problems. This is because the self-referential aspect of recursion inherently breaks larger tasks into smaller subtasks. Furthermore, common to data science are tree and graph data structures whose self-similar inner structures naturally accommodate recursive processing. Often in programming we need to repeat a set of operations many times, such as when processing various data structures. Such repetition can be made to occur until met by a specific condition, such as the value of a variable. When a function&s;s repeated operations include the name of the function itself, the technique of this repetition is termed recursion . Recursion can sometimes provide an elegant alternative to an otherwise complex repetitious task. Recursion is related to the principle of mathematical induction.