More dares introducing abstraction (functions)

[benjohnbarnes]

I was working on the dares last night with my son (8). He made good progress but struggled most with functions. I think the learning curve here is quite a bit steeper than earlier on. Could it be more gentle?

Perhaps add more dares that bring it up in stages? It seems like you get functions in, and then start asking darees to find an abstraction and also build a function to implement it.

I'd suggest:

• Maybe more examples using pre-written functions, so you start off just using calls to the pre-written functions (and see that this is like growing new pieces of language, similar to robot.drive() and robot.turnLeft(). This might include just adding extra calls of the existing function.
• A further departure could be adding other code between existing calls to an existing function.
• Then perhaps an example where you change what is in the function.
• Then an example of passing a parameter, perhaps to a square drawing function, and seeing how varying the parameter helps.
• Then examples where you build your own functions.