

How to explain callbacks in plain english? - Arkid
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9596276/how-to-explain-callbacks-in-plain-english-how-are-they-different-from-calling-o/

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Arkid
Quora's approach to the same question is interesting
[http://www.quora.com/How-to-explain-callbacks-in-plain-
Engli...](http://www.quora.com/How-to-explain-callbacks-in-plain-English-How-
are-they-different-from-calling-one-function-from-another-function)

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twiceaday
Is there something tricky about callbacks?

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FrancescoRizzi
well, nothing tricky, really, but I think what Joel said about pointers (
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html)
) applies to callbacks (although the starting base would be the 20 students
left behind after the pointers apocalypse)

"In first year computer science classes, there are always about 200 kids at
the beginning of the semester, all of whom wrote complex adventure games in
BASIC for their PCs when they were 4 years old. They are having a good ol’
time learning C or Pascal in college, until one day the professor introduces
pointers, and suddenly, they don’t get it. They just don’t understand anything
any more. 90% of the class goes off and becomes Political Science majors, then
they tell their friends that there weren’t enough good looking members of the
appropriate sex in their CompSci classes, that’s why they switched. For some
reason most people seem to be born without the part of the brain that
understands pointers"

