The Age of Adaline

Computer Science Level 1

What would the following python code print out? 

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current_year = 2015   
andy_birth = 1984   
andy_minus_adaline = 4   
adaline = andy - andy_minus_adaline   
andy = current_year - andy_birth   
print adaline

None of the rest 1988 27 31

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Calvin Lin by Calvin Lin

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1 solution

The code gives a Traceback:

NameError: name 'andy' is not defined

Why? Because line 4 is executed before line 5 and when that happens, the interpreter has no clue what the variable andy refers to.

There are two important things that are highlighted here, which I always mention while teaching newbies:

  1. Algorithms are inherently procedural. They are executed line by line
  2. The = in programming is more often the same as a binding or an assignment, which is not the same in the way it is used in math

Follow up teaser

25 Helpful 2 Interesting 4 Brilliant 2 Confused

Moderator note:

Yup, those 2 points are really important!

@Calvin Lin , I slightly edited your code. Please check if this is what you meant?

Agnishom Chattopadhyay - 5 years, 8 months ago

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Yup! I started off with Brian, and then when I was changing the title, I wanted to play off "The age of Adeline". Thanks for editing out the last instance of Brian :)

Calvin Lin Staff - 5 years, 8 months ago

I got this right, just because I thought this would be Python 3 already and the print would need parentheses.

Julian Valentine - 1 year, 9 months ago

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