Look at page 19 on how the loop syntax was used! It was used just for "repeat n times" - really simple, (and with a trivial useless loop body). "while" is for a more complicated situation (in general) where there the number of repetitions is controlled by a significant and flexible condition. Such loops (particularly with code to prepare for the next time through the loop) are likely the most difficult for my students to understand, but I am not convinced that it is because of the word keyword used, but just because of the more complicated real situation.
Also the keywords were not tested when a definite collection of objects was being iterated over, as opposed to a simple repetition or an artificial sequence created just to repeat. Then foreach sounds like a clear winner, likely somewhat better than to shorter Python "for". "while" and "for" require complicated additional syntax if you just want "repeat n times". The question then becomes whether adding special syntax for a simple repetition complicates the overall learning situation more than sticking with fewer keywords and depending on flexible synthesis, like using "for" with "range" in Python. This is the only thing I get out of the looping section of the article. I find the table very misleading. Dr. Andrew N. Harrington Computer Science Department Graduate Program Director g...@cs.luc.edu Loyola University Chicago 529 Lewis Towers, 111 E. Pearson St. (Downtown) 417 Cudahy Science Hall (Rogers Park campus) http://www.cs.luc.edu/~anh Phone: 312-915-7982 Fax: 312-915-7998 ahar...@luc.edu (as professor, not gpd role) On Fri, Oct 2, 2015 at 9:02 AM, David Handy <da...@handysoftware.com> wrote: > On Thursday, October 1, 2015 4:50pm, "Andre Roberge" < > andre.robe...@gmail.com> said: > > > ... > > > The best keywords (combining result from the two groups) are thought to > include: repeat, again, loop, cycle > The worst keywords are thought to include: foreach, while, echo, > duplicate, for .... with "for" getting the worst result of all. > Now that you mention it, I have hazy memories from > 30 years ago, when I > was learning BASIC, of puzzling over the meaning of the FOR keyword and > wondering why they chose that word. So I'm not surprised to see that on the > list of difficult keywords. > However, the WHILE keyword in BASIC was intuitive for me. So it surprises > me to see that on their list of bad keywords. > David H >
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