Lec 7 | MIT 6.00 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming, Fall 2008

[yurijzagrebnoy]

I'm I the only one who sees that these guys are quite unfamiliar with the programming language they are trying to teach others?..

[msushi9]

These guys are great. This lecture clearly explains some pivotal concepts.

[omkarv]

John Guttag is a far better lecturer than Eric Grimson!!

[Belgarath]

@omkarv Are you sure you didn't mixed them ? Eric Grimson is the funny one.

[ILOVEANIMEHOPECARD]

@jillybooty so that if one makes a mistake, the other corrects

[SolidSnyder]

I love how Prof Grimson took out the toys and the first thing that came to mind was THE TOWER OF HANOI C:

[jillybooty]

Why are there two professors for one class? to give two perspectives? It seems like it would make more sense to have both of them teach a class at that timeslot.

[ntwiles]

I laugh at both showDicts and sqrt.

[shizzlefoo7]

Warzix it's not that crazy that we call it soccer after the British came up with name. And we already have another more popular sport in America by the name of football

[warzix]

it is kinda bizarre, but americans call football: "soccer".

[Mrxb0x]

@warzix no... We call football football and soccer soccer.

lol Some of the third world countries call soccer "football" for some reason LOL 

[warzix]

@Mrxb0x Thank you for this very sagacious comment. It really makes a lot of sense.

[junior1984able]

@Mrxb0x soccer is called futbol, not soccer, and its the game that most of the world's population watches

[felixcantournet]

@Mrxb0x

No you call Football soccer and some weird game that is a poor copy of rugby and is mainly played with hands Football "for some reason".

Calling American Football, football is about as stupid as calling basketball football.

Also you are alone in this non-sense.

[scatmanski]

@Mrxb0x soccer is just some random abbreviation of association football which was a popular name for the more standardised game a hundred years ago, American football on the other hand is a less tactical but more fast paced version of rugby and bear in mind that the name football for what some call soccer had been used for the game before the word soccer was popularised.

[iateyourgranny]

@Mrxb0x you call handegg football and football soccer

[epicnidhogg]

@warzix no, only ppl from US, all the rest of america call their own language.

[TheMartingull]

@epicnidhogg Personally I see Americans as people from the US. If you introduce yourself as an American I would not got 'So you are from Canada, or.. ?'

[epicnidhogg]

@TheMartingull from brazil :D

[TheReolus]

@TheMartingull That's pretty stupid imo, America is a continent. Someone from Canada or Mexico is American too, as you already now. I understand what you mean but if I were American (from Mexico, for example) I wouldn't like you to say that at all. The U.S doesn't own all the American continent.

[jellybean2626]

@warzix It's soccer when you have your own native game called football :)

[jehugaleahsa]

raw_input and input grab strings, not floats, in modern Python versions. Python must have changed raw_input since then. Python now relies heavily on exception handling:

try: x = float(raw_input('Enter a number:' )) floatFound = True

except: pass

[Nisstyre56]

@jehugaleahsa You should NEVER simply ignore errors using something like "except: pass". Also, wrapping code in try:, except: clauses needlessly slows down your programs.

[jehugaleahsa]

@Nisstyre56 I would say premature optimization is worse than needless exception handling. Exception handling as a "flow of control" is becoming popular in interpreted languages because it really doesn't take much time as compared to the actual "interpretation" process. In static languages, if performance is crucial, then, yes, exception handling should be used with care. As for intepreted languages, I'd say bad input is exceptional, wouldn't you?

[Nisstyre56]

@jehugaleahsa Yes premature optimization is bad. However imo, you can intelligently handle different inputs without resorting to exception handling in most cases where you know the source of input. e.g. pure vs. impure functions, if a function's output depends totally on the inputs, and not some random source of data, then I say let the interpreter output an error instead of letting it silently pass.

[kernel2006]

@carlosdude1991

He was making those jokes before you or I were born.

[casperghosty]

lol "showDicts" sounded funny when he said it.

[mademedoit]

i dont think so.

in c++

Ivys[i] = smt

are to operators. Subscript and assignement. Dont think it is different in python

[mademedoit]

Why does he say that the assignement operator is overloaded when doing 

ivys[1] = -15? The subscript operator returns an element of the list which is bound to -15 like any other variable.

[yumyum999zz]

Maybe he means that when related to lists, "=" means a different thing or has additional meaning (is overload) then "=" in the case of x = -15. Not the ivys binding changes but that the bindings of ivys elements change.

[aisbaa]

I guess that

Ivys = smth // is classic operator

// and

Ivys[i] = smth // is overloaded