> it just beats you with recursion right from the beginning I'm not disagreeing with you as I write this, more pontificating on teaching styles... we all know

> it just beats you with recursion right from the beginning I'm not disagreeing with you as I write this, more pontificating on teaching styles... we all know recursion can get tricky / be hard to understand in the context of a programming language, but sometimes it's all in the presentation... if we tell the student right up front "hey, this is how we do this, no big deal right?" then perhaps they don't put up their natural defenses and make it into a harder concept than it really is?