Recursion and Higher-Order Functions

Welcome to recursion! In functional programming, recursion is a powerful technique where a function calls itself to solve a problem.

Instead of using loops (like for or while in other languages), Elixir often relies on recursion to iterate over data or repeat actions. It's a core concept you'll use a lot!

Every recursive function needs two main parts to work correctly:

• Base Case: This is the stopping condition. It defines when the function should stop calling itself and return a direct result. Without it, your function would run forever!
• Recursive Step: This is where the function calls itself again, but with a smaller or simpler version of the original problem. Each call moves closer to the base case.