The "loop and a half"

[Chris Angelico]

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 1:36 PM, Stefan Ram <ram at zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote:
> Steve D'Aprano <steve+python at pearwood.info> writes:
>>If you were teaching people to drive a car, would you insist on teaching them
>>how to pull out and rebuild the engine before sitting them in the drivers
>>seat?
>
>   If I would have to teach people to drive a car, I would
>   exercise with them how to move the steering wheel to control
>   the direction, how to change gears, how to look over the
>   shoulder to check the blind spot, and I would first exercise
>   each of these actions /in isolation/ at a quiet training
>   area, before the people then possible have to do several of
>   these actions at the same time in real road traffic.

But you wouldn't dig down into the more concrete level of what
actually happens when you change gears (explaining both automatic AND
manual transmission, for completeness). You'd just say "change gears
by moving this thingy over to there".

(Caveat: I don't drive a car. Experienced drivers probably don't call
the thingy a thingy, they probably call it a gear lever or something
boring like that.)

ChrisA