Math background here too. Long before I first sat down at a computer (in 1981), we learned about the inductive principle in math class, and did some proofs with

Math background here too. Long before I first sat down at a computer (in 1981), we learned about the inductive principle in math class, and did some proofs with it. Later on, our introduction to recursion (in Pascal) started with a review of induction. Of course the next phase is trying to do everything with recursion.