This is brilliant, except that one recurs -- just as one incurs debt. Recursing is a thing one does to a throne in Nethack, not something done with code.
Because I can assure you that as someone who works mostly in FP languages, recursion is, in fact, done a lot with code and not just nethack. :)
So how should I say “this code is recursing” instead? “This code is ..” ? Or is it solely about the form of “This code recurses”, which should instead be “This code recurs” ? Which also sounds somewhat wrong, because wouldn’t that refer to “recurring” instead of “recursing” ?
Thanks for your explanation, and of course the grandparent as well.
"This code is recurring" is correct, but not so idiomatic.
But English is a living language, grammarians should be descriptive not prescriptive etc... "Recurse" (and "Recursing") is a perfectly good backformation, especially because it performs a useful function in distinguishing between two uses of the overloaded verb "to recur".
I also kind of like 'recurse' as a new construction for recursion in computer science to immediately disambiguate it from recurrence in ordinary language.
While others are by GOs possessed,
And WHILE-DO, CASE, and all the rest,
The LISPing hackers will prefer
With COND their programs to invest
And let their functions all recur
When searching trees in maddened quest.