yes, usually anything having to do with recursive structures, like threes, is a good fit for recursive algorithms. In fact, the function I wrote had to generate

yes, usually anything having to do with recursive structures, like threes, is a good fit for recursive algorithms. In fact, the function I wrote had to generate a directory structure out of a template: https://gist.github.com/pvlpenev/4760658 https://gist.github.com/pvlpenev/4760658 (and i still used loop :) But keep in mind that some things, although recursively defined, are better computed in other ways, the most obvious example is a Fibonacci sequence, which if I really needed, I would precompute and stick in an array for constant time access or something like that(maybe memoize a recursive function).