Let's take an oversimplified example of adding two numbers together to drive the concept home. When writing a script, you're essentially laying down lines of code for the computer to execute in sequential order. The first time you need to add two numbers together, you could just brute-force it like in the following code block:
someNumber + anotherNumber
But then you conclude that these numbers need to be added together somewhere else. Instead of copying and pasting the same line of code, which results in sloppy or "spaghetti" code and should be avoided at all costs, you can create a named method that will take care of this action:
AddNumbers
{
someNumber + anotherNumber
}
Now AddNumbers is holding a place in memory, just like a variable; however, instead of a value, it holds a block of instructions. Using the name of the method (or calling it) anywhere in a script puts the stored instructions at your fingertips without having to repeat any code.Â
This produces what programmers jokingly call spaghetti code because it can get messy. You'll also hear programmers refer to a solution called the Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY) principle, which is a mantra you should keep in mind.
As before, once we've seen a new concept in pseudocode, it's best if we implement it ourselves, which is what we'll do in the next section to drive it home.