A programming instructor shares a memorable story about a student who fundamentally misunderstood how functions and variables work in Ruby. The student wrote two separate functions with hardcoded values instead of a single general-purpose function, believing one function couldn't return two different results. The author draws three lessons from the experience: never assume what is obvious to others, create safe spaces for questions, and practice empathy when teaching people who struggle with concepts that feel intuitive to experienced developers.
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