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  • Thank you for your complete answer. But I don't think recursion is just to remove loops. Some problem naturally are better solved or stated with recursion. (for example trees manipulations), Anyway I don't see much "HOW" in recursive programs, however there are parts which are about "HOW". Then I thought recursion may naturally belong to declarative language or its just a declarative expression and meant to get that acknowledge by the question. Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 5:42
  • What I said was that recursion substitutes for loops in purely functional languages. In impure functional languages such as Common Lisp, there are loop functions available. Every language has imperative constructs under the covers, and if they don't, just keep going down through the abstraction layers until you reach machine language. There's always a "how" somewhere. Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 5:46
  • By Waht do you mean to define problem based on the existing definitions? it's actually what recursive algorithms do, define base and define the n base on n-1. However I know an engine is needed to drive or evaluate the function based on the basic functions. interesting! Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 10:31
  • Isn't a bit strange to give a functional programming example to explain declarative programming and not give logic / constraints programming examples other than SQL ? Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 16:55
  • @skeptic: The list is not comprehensive. I didn't list every purely-functional language either. Commented Feb 17, 2015 at 16:59