Right, but his point was that he wanted to try something, which is an attitude to be encouraged. Maybe it's not effective, or better, or useful, but it's exploring to find out how to do something in a different way, and understanding how to use the tools to do it.

If you're comfortable with thinking about a problem in multiple ways, you can learn when to use one versus another. If you only know how to do iterative solutions, recursive ones look strange and challenging (or vice versa, for those whose first language was LISP).