Working through the SICP (Structured Interpretation of Computer Programs): Counting change

I've read the beginnings of SICP many times. I never seem to get too far - usually I'm diverted by some change of view or a new interest. Maybe I'll never get to the end - it's hard to say.

In any case, I'm working through it again right now and this time, I'm not allowing myself to go one iota past anything that confuses me. That is, if I feel even the least bit confused on a topic, example, or problem, I will work on it until it is crystal clear. In fact, I think this issue is one of the major problems with self-study from written works - they don't always give a good indication of how much difficulty they ought to be for the average reader. And that can be intimidating and demoralizing for students. I mean, is it expected to have to spend a week on a single problem for it to become clear?

For better or worse, I count myself amongst the middle of the bell curve when it comes to understanding new things. I've seen other people who seem to understand things right away. Sometimes it's because they've been exposed to that information before, or something very similar. Rarely, it's because they're just that quick. More commonly, they'll pretend to understand, just to keep face. But me, I like to truly understand things at the gut level, or have a sense of why that's not possible.

I bring this up because I've recently gotten stuck for the past week on the "Counting Change" section of chapter 1.2.2 - the tree recursion chapter. It starts like this:

  It takes only a bit of cleverness to come up with the iterative
  Fibonacci algorithm.  In contrast, consider the following problem: How
  many different ways can we make change of $ 1.00, given half-dollars,
  quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies?  More generally, can we write a
  procedure to compute the number of ways to change any given amount of
  money?

  	 This problem has a simple solution as a recursive procedure.
  Suppose we think of the types of coins available as arranged in some
  order.  Then the following relation holds...

I read this section and saw words like "simple" and "easily" and felt it like a slap to the face. But I'm persistent, stupid, and angry, so I stuck to this problem for the past week until I took it apart. Here is the break down:

Example: Making change on a total of 30 cents, using dimes, 
nickels, and pennies


          +------- Notice this column has all the same value
          |
          |
          |              +----- Only this section changes
          V              V
Count#

 1)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  2 dimes  +  0 nickels  +  0 pennies  )
 2)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  1 dime   +  2 nickels  +  0 pennies  )
 3)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  1 dime   +  1 nickel   +  5 pennies  )
 4)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  1 dime   +  0 nickels  + 10 pennies  )
 5)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  0 dimes  +  0 nickels  +  0 pennies  )
 6)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  0 dimes  +  4 nickels  +  0 pennies  )  <--+
 7)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  0 dimes  +  3 nickels  +  5 pennies  )     |
 8)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  0 dimes  +  2 nickels  + 10 pennies  )     |
 9)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  0 dimes  +  1 nickels  + 15 pennies  )     |
10)  ( 1 dime ) +  (  0 dimes  +  0 nickels  + 20 pennies  )     |
                                                                |
      10 cents        +          20 cents                      |
                                                               |
     -----------------------------------                       |
                                                               |
 1)                             6 nickels  +  0 pennies        |
 2)                             5 nickels  +  5 pennies        |
 3)                             4 nickels  + 10 pennies        |
 4)                             3 nickels  + 15 pennies  <--+  |
 5)                             2 nickels  + 20 pennies     |  |
 6)                             1 nickels  + 25 pennies     |  |
 7)                             0 nickels  + 30 pennies     |  |
                                                            |  |
                                     30 cents               |  |
 TOTAL: 17 ways                                             |  |
                                                            |  |
               none of first demonination used -------------+  |
                   (number of ways on 30 cents)                |
                                                               |
                          plus                                 |
                                                               |
            at least one of first denomination used -----------+
              ( number of ways on 20 cents)

Per SICP, The number of ways to change amount A using N kinds of coins equals
* the number of ways to change amount A using all but the first kind of coin (7 ways in the example here)
plus
* the number of ways to change amount A - D using all N kinds of coins, where D is the denomination of the first kind of coin. (10 ways here)

I suppose what drives me nuts about this section is this: The recursive relation is not, at all, obvious. A person might initially think so - it's certainly implied - it seems like maybe the reader just isn't up to the task or something. But as you can see above, where I break it down entirely, this is not transparently plain. Only when I made things concrete and regimented did the rationale behind things pop forward.

Especially in the case of a book where self-study is expected, situations like this need to be more heavily documented, using illustrations where necessary, to avoid causing stumbling blocks.