Week 2

Conditional execution and other goodies

A few more words on Python

When people say Python is "easy"

They really mean "straight forward"

The initial learning process is still hard

Python makes it the least awful

Let the "black box" be dark for a little longer

You will have lots of "why" and "how" questions.

Love it! But let's chat about that.

You can't always understand the answers without the foundations you're getting now.

Conceptual versus skill based learning

Compare this to accounting.

There are important concepts to understand, but the initial learning tends to be more on the side of skill based practice.

Once you get through this slog you can get into theory. Which is awesome!

Now, let's get back to code.

Conditional execution!

Semantic

What you were trying to say versus what you actually said.

print versus return

Syntax

What and how you can say things.

print versus Print

the basic if

if something...

then do this stuff...

name = "Elizabeth"

if name == "Elizabeth":
    print "I know you!"
elif name == "":
    print "Who are you again?"
else:
    print "I don't know you."

Grader example

This was one of the chapter problems.

Starting logic

100+ -> A+

90-99 -> A

80-89 -> B

70-79 -> C

60-69 -> D

0-59 -> F

In Python

grade > 90

grade > 80

versus

grade >= 90

grade >=80

Hint: think about a grade of 90

Do we need to say

grade >= 80 and grade <89 ?

What should our logic be?

We'll explore this more later