Recursion in VHDL, performance? what is the difference with a conventional programming language?
Recursion is possible in VHDL as long as the maximum depth is known and specified beforehand. The synthesis tool should expand out the recursion in any case. As for pros and cons, I can only think of one difference, and that's convenience for the user. Whichever way is most convenient should be fine. If it's easier to think about and develop an algorithm using recursion, then coding it that way would be easier and less error prone. The converse is true too.