Monday, January 21, 2013

14-20 January 2013


This week, we delved further into Python, despite an interruption from the symphony.  This interruption led to us concluding only one lesson in two days, namely functions.  Functions are the same as Jeroo methods- a few lines of code that are first defined and can later be called on multiple times.  I do not, however, understand the value of- as in our examples- putting everything in functions and then calling the main function once; it seems unnecessarily confusing, even if it does hold some value for error detection.  Still, if it stood the test of time….

I will not go into the mechanics and syntax of how functions work, but I will note that, unlike in Jeroo, functions can be of variables.  That is, a function can have inputs and an output both, as well as doing something in its body whenever called.  The indent of three spaces reappeared, symbolizing organization- an indented line might be part of a function’s definition, etc..  Finally, we “wrote” a program that calculated the heat index and then printed out a string based on its numerical value.

Overall, we seem to be progressing quickly towards the parts of Python with no Jeroo analogues.  That seems like a good thing.

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