Let’s go back to our newspaper delivery example; we’ll consider the delivery to Richard Pattis in Newspaper 0. Below is a solution to that problem, with a few added comments.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 | take() # the star newspaper
# climb up first floor
turn_left()
move()
turn_left()
turn_left()
turn_left()
move()
move()
# climb up second floor
turn_left()
move()
turn_left()
turn_left()
turn_left()
move()
move()
# climb up third floor
turn_left()
move()
turn_left()
turn_left()
turn_left()
move()
move()
put() # put down the newspaper
# turn around
turn_left()
turn_left()
# climb down floor
move()
move()
turn_left()
move()
turn_left()
turn_left()
turn_left()
# climb down floor
move()
move()
turn_left()
move()
turn_left()
turn_left()
turn_left()
# climb down floor
move()
move()
turn_left()
move()
turn_left()
turn_left()
turn_left()
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This solution is quite long ... and it is easy to make mistakes when typing it. We note however that there are quite a few repeated code segments for which we could create functions. We have already defined turn_right() and turn_around(); let’s use them and define a few others.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 | from library import turn_right, turn_around
def climb_up_one_floor():
turn_left()
move()
turn_right()
move()
move()
def climb_up_three_floors():
climb_up_one_floor()
climb_up_one_floor()
climb_up_one_floor()
def climb_down_one_floor():
move()
move()
turn_left()
move()
turn_right()
def climb_down_three_floors():
climb_down_one_floor()
climb_down_one_floor()
climb_down_one_floor()
# === End of definitions ===
take() # the star newspaper
climb_up_three_floors()
put() # leave paper
turn_around()
climb_down_three_floors()
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Each function contains no more than 5 instructions; it’s much easier to verify that each function does what it is supposed to do than verifying an entire list of commands like we have previously. Once we know that the functions do what they are supposed to do, making use of them allow us to write a complete program in 5 more lines of code - again, much easier to verify that it is right. All together, using functions to avoid repetitions, we end up with a shorter program that is also much easier to read.
Your turn!
Write the above program and make sure it works correctly. Once this is done, you will be ready to learn another trick to make it even simpler.
Since functions like climb_up_one_floor(), climb_up_three_floors, etc., are specific to this problem, it is probably not a good idea to save them in the library; you don’t want to have too many functions in your library so that you are always able to remember all that are there. If you do find that you use a function many times in different programs, then it is a good idea to put it in your library.
