Python for Absolute Beginners Transcripts
Chapter: Course conclusion
Lecture: Review: Functions
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One of the most powerful tools we have in our programming toolbox for changing the way that we think about and work with our code is functions.
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Functions allow us to group together a bunch of small little steps into one very simple step. Here we have a bunch of things going on
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we have a function called play around. It takes some arguments and then we take a bunch of work inside the function.
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But all that matters once we write this when we want to use it we know pass player_1 and player_2's name and then what we'll get back
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is the value of the winner. Either player_1 or player_2 or if there's a tie, we get none. And that allows us two really important things.
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One, it allows up to think about well this step is where you play the round. We don't have to worry about the details.
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Remember in our later part of the course we changed the way that we got the input from the users. We got that instead of just saying
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input and type in a number we actually used that autocomplete thing. The stuff that was calling get play or get role from the user
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they didn't have to go and know that we changed how that worked. It just got changed and everywhere we used it automatically
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the better version got used. It allows us to hide away and not worry about the details just used the high level idea of playing around.
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It also lets us organize our code in a way that is much simpler. We can think about here we're going to play around
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we're going to check for the winner. If there's enough winners. I have enough wins for any given player we're going to exit out of the loop
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and they win. It allows you to think at a very high level instead of at every single bit you're thinking about the details. Super cool.
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Be sure to make use of functions try to keep them short and small. If they get really long and cumbersome you probably want to break that further
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into smaller functions. Allow you to get smaller and smaller detail as you go down and not get things too complicated all in one place.