Introduction to Recursive Programming

Recursion is an important problem-solving skill that is considered to be one of the most difficult topics to master by CS1/2 students. This book helps students assimilate its fundamental concepts by analyzing a large number of problems of different nature, covering classical problems found in the literature, as well as richer related problems.

Recursion is a fundamental topic in computer science, but one that is frequently taught in a fragmented way as part of an introductory course and then set aside for such electives as discrete programming and difference equations. Rubio-Sánchez (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain) believes that there are better ways to approach a concept so powerfully connected to computation. His book provides a comprehensive and approachable treatment of recursive programming. The text contains mathematical proofs, as well as clear methods that students can follow to derive new results and expand their knowledge in areas the book may not cover. Many of the fundamental problems that recursion can solve are presented and discussed; more advanced problems are addressed through decomposition and analysis. The book also contains a section on algorithm analysis, which helps form the basis for more advanced material on computational complexity. This book is useful as a textbook for introductory programming courses when an instructor adopts a more fundamental approach than imperative programming, but it can also serve as a useful reference for those who wish to explore recursive programming on their own, or for algorithm designers in the industry.

--L. Benedicenti, University of New Brunswick (CHOICE)

Recursion is a fundamental topic in computer science, but one that is frequently taught in a fragmented way as part of an introductory course and then set aside for such electives as discrete programming and difference equations. Rubio-Sánchez (Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Spain) believes that there are better ways to approach a concept so powerfully connected to computation. His book provides a comprehensive and approachable treatment of recursive programming. The text contains mathematical proofs, as well as clear methods that students can follow to derive new results and expand their knowledge in areas the book may not cover. Many of the fundamental problems that recursion can solve are presented and discussed; more advanced problems are addressed through decomposition and analysis. The book also contains a section on algorithm analysis, which helps form the basis for more advanced material on computational complexity. This book is useful as a textbook for introductory programming courses when an instructor adopts a more fundamental approach than imperative programming, but it can also serve as a useful reference for those who wish to explore recursive programming on their own, or for algorithm designers in the industry.

--L. Benedicenti, University of New Brunswick (CHOICE)

Manuel Rubio-Sánchez received MS and PhD degrees in computer science from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid in 1997 and 2004, respectively. Since, he has had a faculty position at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid, Spain), where he is currently an associate professor in the Superior Technical School of Computer Science. His teaching has focused on computer programming, ranging from introductory CS1 courses to more advanced courses on algorithms and data structures. He has published several research studies related to recursion in the computer science education conferences. His other research interests include machine learning, and exploratory data analysis and visualization. Finally, he has been a lecturer at St. Louis University (Madrid campus), and has carried out research visits at Université de Cergy-Pontoise (Paris), and the University of California, San Diego.

For more information on the author, please visit https://sites.google.com/view/recursiveprogrammingintro/.