Help Me out. !

[Active]

I was just trying to teach my Younger Brother (5th Grader) BASIC Programming.

Well it was going on well untill I wrote this to
Explain how we asign values to variables.

Initially
a = 1
b = 2

now if

a = a +b

then a = 3

Now my brother is arguing how

a = a + b can be possible if b is not equal to zero.

I tried to explain to him that it is just a way of writing in Programming languages.

He called me an Ediot (I deserve that :( ).
Is there any way I could explain to him and justify such a syntax ?

ha.. thats is a really tough job Active...

Tell him that you are assigning the value a + b to a rather than stating a is equal to a + b

[Active]

I can't talk to him about memory...He will simply shout at me.

He agrees that I am assigning the value of a+b to a
But says that I cannot write a = a + b and assume it is
correct.

He says his math teacher will fail him if he wrote like that.

If he agrees that you are assigning the value of a + b to a, then why can he not understand that you have to write a = a + b?

[Active]

His confusion stems from the fact that we use a
in both sides of the equal sign.

[Active]

What he actually does in mind is replacing the
characters by their values..

So he thinks like

1 = 1 + 2

Tell him to think like this:


[EMPTY BOX LABELED a] = [VALUE OF a] + [VALUE OF b]

Of course, it isn't really empty...

[dimava]

teach him VB, which is easier

[Active]

I will try that....thanks...

[HarryW]

Sounds like the problem is just notation. You could use a symbol like this <- to explain it, and then just swap it when it comes to running the program. Perhaps you could show him Pascal, that uses := instead of = for assignment. = is for equality in Pascal, as he is thinking of it. BASIC (and VB too) just uses the context to decide which operator it is, assignment or equality.

[Active]

Thanks harry! That should do it.
Now I am using <-- operator for assigning.
I presume he Understood the difference.

[dimava]

I think that the easiest (and fairly prowerful) language is VB, because to get the same results in BASIC you need to do a hell of a lot code. because you need to program the mouse.. and draw all the lines and stuff.. but in VB you just click-and-drag, change the properties.. and stuff

I stated VB when I was in 7th grade but i would not have been able to understand it in 5th.

Another good thing in VB is that you can create a program without 1 line of code

[random150]

The = is confusing

just tell him if he still doesnt understand to think of the = as
glass that your putting the stuff on the right into the left.

x = A + B
x is a glass
A + B is the water

this is much more simple to understand it.

[dimava]

and if he still doesn't understand it, then tell him to wait a few years untill trying to learn it