[Tutor] Focus on the functions [Was Re: if-else statements]

[Norman Silverstone]

> I apologize to the list again for the noisy contentless ranting I made
> yesterday, so I'll try making it up by doing concrete demos of a
> function-focused approach.  This will critique Zelle's Chapter Two and
> Chapter Five, and see what things would look like if under a function
> regime.
> 
< snip>

I am an elderly person somewhat physically handicapped with some
experience  programming in basic and pascal, many years ago. In order to
keep myself mentally active I decided to have a look once again at
programming and chose python as a good language to start with. So, I had
a look at 'Dive into Python', bought a couple of books, 'Python
Programming for the Absolute Beginner' and 'Learn to program Using
Python'.

All was well to start with until I came to the section on functions. I
am finding it very difficult to grasp the reasoning behind the use of
functions and how and when to use them. I keep trying to see if any of
the snippets of programs that I have already come across are
transferable into functions without a great deal of success. The problem
appears to be that, and here I agree with the writer, functions are
introduced as something on their own, well after manipulating strings,
lists, dictionaries, tuples, loops etc are dealt with. 

Having studied the examples given here, I am beginning to get some
understanding of what is going on. If only I could find many more
examples like these, in simple English, I would be a very happy student.

> Anyway, hope this helps!

It certainly helps me.

Norman