different errors, return outside function and others

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Mon, 23 Feb 2009 07:07:57 -0200, Tony <sternbrightblade at gmail.com>  
escribió:

> ok thank you for that input, this is my first class in programming and  
> its
> the only one the school offers. im pretty sure those are supposed to be
> modules
> that im writting. would it make a difference if those were modules and  
> not
> functions? kinda stupid question there but im trying to learn as much as
> possible.

Each module is a separate file, with extension .py
If you put all your code in a single file, you write a single module.  
That's fine in this case, unless it grows to something unmanageable.

Functions are blocks of code that have a name and "do" something specific,  
and usually return some result. They start with the keyword "def". You  
have defined several functions already, but called them "modules" in the  
comments, that's wrong and may be confusing.

> Also anything with def infront of it example def start(): would be a
> function correct? also im Using 2.5 and the IDLE to do this

Exactly!

I think you have written so much code without testing it. It's time to  
test every piece now. Start with... the start function, obviously!

But before, you have to clean your code. There are a few strange lines  
that should not be there (all those lines on the left margin that aren't  
"def" statements, like intro_area(), alley()...). Just remove or comment  
them.

Then you can start testing each function, one at a time. Simply call the  
function with the desired parameters (if any), right at the bottom of the  
file. To test the first one (start), use something like this:

print "about to call start()"
result = start()
print "start() finished, result=", result

and do the same for each individual function. Once you know each piece  
works fine, you can start combining them until you build the complete  
program.

-- 
Gabriel Genellina