What's the difference between generating a value and returning a value?

[Dave Angel]

Clearly, there's no difference, from the wording you quoted.  He uses 
three words more or less interchangeably, "produced", "generated" and 
"returned."

The distinction he's making is not between these words, but between the 
built-in functions, which are already returning values, and the ones 
that he has had the user write so far, that do not.

DaveA

grocery_stocker wrote:
> Taken from the url....
>
> http://openbookproject.net/thinkCSpy/ch05.xhtml#index15
>
> "The built-in functions we have used, such as abs,
> pow, and max, have produced results.  Calling each of
> these functions generates a value, which we usually assign to a
> variable or
> use as part of an expression.
>
>
> biggest = max(3, 7, 2, 5)
> x = abs(3 - 11) + 10
>
> But so far, none of the functions we have written has returned a
> value.
>
> In this chapter, we are going to write functions that return values,
> which
> we will call fruitful functions,"
>
> So what's the difference between generating a value and returning a
> value?
>
>
>
>
>