What are reasons for the debouncing function implemented in recursion instead of iteration?

Question

In this post we have a snippet of debouncing function: Can someone explain the "debounce" function in Javascript

It uses recursion as the algorithm. However, this doesn't seem to fit the typical recursion situation, where each step has a somewhat smaller instance of the previous step. I was wondering if there are any advantage using recursion at all? To me, this method would inevitably burden call stacks by recursive calls. Could someone list some reasons backing up this recursive approach? Thanks.

It might be because I'm really sleepy right now, but I don't see how the function is in any way recursive? — VLAZ, Sep 22 '16 at 21:57
There's no recursion at all (and not even an async pseudo-recursion). Where do you see a recursive call? — Bergi, Sep 22 '16 at 22:07
No, the body of `settimeout` only ever calls the original function, which does not result in `settimeout` being called again. — GreenAsJade, Sep 23 '16 at 00:08

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 22 '16 at 21:57

There is no recursion there.

I think that you are mistaking the inner keyword function as a call to the function being defined.

That is not the case

This is a function that returns a (different) function.

When you call debounce(foo) you get back a function.

e.g.

function foo (foothing) {
  console.log(foothing)
}

debounced_foo = debounce(foo)

Then you can call that function:

debounced_foo(my_param)
debounced_foo(my_param)
debounced_foo(my_param)

And it will do what foo() would have done, except it will only do it once rather than many times in quick succession.

What are reasons for the debouncing function implemented in recursion instead of iteration?

1 Answers1