Efficiency: recursion vs loop

Question

This is just curiosity on my part, but what is more efficient, recursion or a loop?

Given two functions (using common lisp):

(defun factorial_recursi         


        

Answer 1

I don't even have to read your code.

Loop is more efficient for factorials. When you do recursion, you have up to x function calls on the stack.

You almost never use recursion for performance reasons. You use recursion to make the problem more simple.