That's true. Logo has functions too. But for all the innovation that has gone into making the notion of an instruction easy to learn, functions everywhere look

That's true. Logo has functions too. But for all the innovation that has gone into making the notion of an instruction easy to learn, functions everywhere look the same. For example, why can't a function in Scratch change its shape based on the number of arguments? When I learned programming it took me years to stop "ping-ponging" between bugs. I'd fix the most recently discovered bug, only to simultaneously break the second-most recently discovered bug. My students show the same behavior. That's a sure sign that just giving kids functions doesn't help them understand. Your observations about the differences in learning strategies were useful, thanks.