Why should recursion be preferred over iteration?

Question

Iteration is more performant than recursion, right? Then why do some people opine that recursion is better (more elegant, in their words) than iteration? I really don\'t see

Answer 1

"Iteration is more performant than recursion" is really language- and/or compiler-specific. The case that comes to mind is when the compiler does loop-unrolling. If you've implemented a recursive solution in this case, it's going to be quite a bit slower.

This is where it pays to be a scientist (testing hypotheses) and to know your tools...