> It depends on whether the limited call stack capacity will be an issue for the particular problem you’re solving.
First: that common programming languages use the limited call stack for implementing recursion is an artifact of the programming language (implementation). One can, for example, use a stack data structure for implementing DFS instead of using the call stack; it would be no problem for a programming language implementation to use a similar method for implementing recursion.
This said: there actually exist two kinds of recursion (barely every computer science textbooks at most barely mentions this):
1. "normal" recursion (with all its problems such as potential stack overflow etc.)
2. tail recursion with guaranteed tail-call elimination (TCE) in the programming language semantics; then recursion basically behaves "like loops".
I want to clarify that it is a common exercise to convert a program that uses "normal" recursion to one that uses tail-recursion, just like it is a common exercise to convert such a program to one that uses imperative style.
Yes, languages and/or engines with this feature can eliminate any concerns about stack overflows.
But in this particular case I'm using JavaScript (since at this time it has the best libraries for working with TypeScript ASTs) running under Node.js, and my understanding is that is has no tail call optimization.
The other language I mostly work in is C#, which also similarly lacks it.
So, at this time in the languages I work in, I need to consider possible stack overflows whenever I use recursion.