Long Ways, First Steps. Programmer who became God. Learning a programming language is a lot like learning any other language.
Maybe easier than learning a new human language. Learning to write your programs in Java, C++, C#, Python... isn't an easy job to be done, yet, it should never be considered a hard work to do. When someone learns how to use that programming language, does he/she become a programmer? Recursion. I think recursion is more appropriately termed to be a technique rather than calling recursion an algorithm.
It is a technique that shows up in many algorithms. Iteration is a close relative to recursion, especially to tail-recursion. Further Recursion. At first when I wanted to write about recursion my knowledge about this matter was so limited.
I'm not implying that now I know everything about recursion but I thought its enough to write about it. I used "Structures and Interpretation of Computer Programs" by Harold Abelson and Gerald Jay Sussman, Julie Sussman and some material from Stanford online course "Algorithms: Design and Analysis, Part 1". Before I start I have to say, please, do tell me if you think I'm wrong somewhere or feel free to add anything you think is being missed. I'll keep updating this post so it can cover recursion in computers as well as possible.