[Edu-sig] explaining functions [Possibly OT]

[Laura Creighton]

Sorry to quote all of this -- When I post a one line message to edu-sig, it
gets rejected as spam.  If this works, of course, this indicates an attack.
I wonder how many other one-line questions I have sent to people have been
quietly eaten?

Does anybody have any recommendations for an editor for children?  In the
days I was speaking, I used an editor called 'brief' but I don't think they
are in business any more.

Laura

In a message of Mon, 06 Dec 2004 01:24:02 +0100, Gregor Lingl writes:
>Laura Creighton schrieb:
>
>This examples shows beautifully that there are different concepts of 
>"function", which
>also shows up in Python: some are called to return a result - this *shoul
>d*
>be independent of global circumstances (variables). (Like mathematical 
>functions
>mentioned in Nicholas' posting.)
>The others are functions that *do* something, for instance draw a line 
>(like forward
>from the turtle graphics module). What forward(50) produces is by no mean
>s
>independent of the state of the machine. (And it returns None!) So these 
>are called
>merely because of their side-effects.
>
>And (regrettably?) there are many functions which do both: produce 
>side-effects
>and return values (in the real world (especially of students)).
>
>>And the climax was when I made them fix _each others_ code to make it pr
>oduce
>>the correct results.  I was called 'mean' for that.  :-)
>>
>>  
>>
>By all means, what does 'mean' mean in this context?
>Gregor
>
>>Laura
>>
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>>
>>  
>>