What is a practical difference between a loop and recursion

Question

I am currently working in PHP, so this example will be in PHP, but the question applies to multiple languages.

I am working on this project with a fiend of mine, and as

Answer 1

Often, a problem is easier expressed using recursion. This is especially true when you talk about tree-like data structures (e.g. directories, decision trees...).

These data structures are finite in nature, so most of the time processing them is clearer with recursion.

When stack-depth is often limited, and every function call requires a piece of stack, and when talking about a possibly infinite data structure you will have to abandon recursion and translate it into iteration.

Especially functional languages are good at handling 'infinite' recursion. Imperative languages are focused on iteration-like loops.