Recursion and Looping Examples

This section is about building muscle memory.

You will take problems that Java developers normally solve with loops and mutable variables and solve them in Clojure using:

• pipelines (map / filter)
• accumulation (reduce)
• explicit loops (loop/recur)
• recursion when the problem shape calls for it

Practical tip: do the examples in a REPL. The fastest way to learn iteration in Clojure is to evaluate small variations and inspect the intermediate values.

The goal is not to be clever. It is to pick the simplest iteration shape and make the data flow obvious.

In this section

• Implementing Recursive Algorithms in Clojure
  Implement quicksort, mergesort, and traversal examples in Clojure while comparing immutable recursive shapes with Java's loop and array-mutation habits.
• Mathematical Recursion Examples in Clojure
  Solve permutations, combinations, factorials, and Towers of Hanoi in Clojure while separating direct recursion from stack-safe loop/recur examples.