Ha! I like the egg metaphor + demo. One thing I would suggest is to change the variable from "egg" to "egg_in_hand". People in my workshop seemed to have the most trouble with the idea that each element was being assigned to the variable name in the for loop. With "egg_in_hand", you can demonstrate the assignment that's happening.
Either way, I like all the different applications of your metaphor. You can teach programming *and* make a cake, all in one session! Juan. On Thu, Dec 3, 2015 at 9:01 PM, Ian Hawke <[email protected]> wrote: > One example that I've used in words, and want to try in reality: > > Take an eggbox with one row of eggs. > > for egg in eggbox: > crack(egg) > > and then take them out one at a time and crack them (into a jug, I guess). > > Alternatively, number the eggs with a permanent marker from 0, and use > this to display list access. > > Main reason for doing this with an eggbox is that it extends to two > dimensions, so the metaphor can extends to numpy array examples with two > indices, which always seems to cause more issues. > > Ian > > > On 03/12/2015 09:24, Karin Lagesen wrote: > >> The more I teach, the more I realize that I am not really able to convey >> what a for loop does to everybody. Do any of you have a metaphor or >> something that you use for teaching it? I explain about variables and >> collections, and the body of the loop, and I show examples, but I am still >> not able to get through all the time. >> >> Karin >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Discuss mailing list >> [email protected] >> >> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >> > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org >
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