[dvt]

I studied math and I find recursion unintuitive, whereas I find the Principle of Induction[1] profoundly intuitive (the two are very closely related).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction

[ScottBurson]

So what is it about recursion that eludes you? It is very strange to me that someone would find one of those concepts easy and the other not -- as you say, they are two forms of the same thing.

[dvt]

I guess it's more reading and writing it in code. In my case, it makes sense to read code like I read a book: it has a beginning, a middle, and an end. (Procedural, see?)

A recursive function makes me do all these convoluted mental gymnastics when I'm just trying to figure out if Cinderella lived happily ever after or not.

[ScottBurson]

I promise you, if you wrote and read more recursive functions, you would get used to them. It's just a matter of practice.

[coldtea]

One is linear, the other recurses (things into things into things).

It's like comparing Star Wars to Inception.