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I think you’ve already gotten some good answers here regarding the function itself:
It sits and waits for the user to input something and hit Enter, and returns the value the user entered, which is then assigned to your nam
variable. (See the documentation for the function.
I might also offer the advice of confirming your understanding of the flow of a program. That is, understand that, in the general sense, the computer must resolve the right-hand side of the equals sign to a value before it can assign it to the left.
For example, if the right-hand side is a literal value, it’s already resolved. For example, a line like name = “Joe”
is easy—assign the string literal “Joe” to the variable name
, when the line is run.
If the right hand side is a mathematical equation, it must be resolved to a value when the line is run. For example, for a line like value = 2+2
, the 2+2
must be resolved to 4
before it can be assigned to the variable.
Then, for something like name = input(“Who are you?”)
, in order to resolve the right-hand side, the computer must first run the function before it can assign a value to the variable name
.
It can, of course, get more complicated, where you can call multiple functions on a line, and the results of one feed into the next, and so on. But, that can be an exercise for the near future.
My first temptation was to say that it might be an age thing, but then I know many people my age who still don’t care about plants.
For me, it’s like a switch flipped one day. When I was younger, I just didn’t really care, and the few times I was given a plant, it did not end well. Figured that I just had a brown thumb.
But, maybe 10-some-odd years ago, I got a peace lily, and, by then, something had changed. I wanted to see this plant thrive, and it brought me just a little bit of satisfaction to see it doing well. It doesn’t hurt that peace lilies will tell you when they need watered, and, as such are pretty easy to keep.
I’m still not the best plant dad, but I’d since gone on to buy about a dozen more and appreciate the bit of greenery around the house.