Chapter 11 Recursion Dierbach Study Guide Recursive programming is an important technique used to implement algorithms. Recursion is frequently a slower technique at execution time but it is also the most natural technique when addressing particular types of problems Recursion finds practical application in a variety of practical programming situations. For ex ample operating system utilities frequently use recursive algorithms to search over directory trees. Sorting applications which implement the popular Quicksort algorithm, (which consti- tutes practically all sort utilities) implement the algorithm recursively. Searching algorithms such as binary search over lists and trees are also typically implemented using recursive for- mulation. Artificial intelligence applications in fields such as robotics and expert systems also use recursion. In this section we look at recursive functions and recursive problem solving along with some applications of the technique