Explain like I only speak in plain English

A conditional is a choice. It is a piece of program that will only happen if a condition is met. Such as, if today is a Monday, then make a reservation for dinner with the family, otherwise, eat dinner alone with TV.

Conditionals are used often in programs to dictate execution flow path. Usually, conditionals are created using if-else statements. If condition is met, do this, else, do that. You can also chain multiple if-else statements together

Explain like I'm a total nerd

Conditionals are available in almost all programming languages. Most conditionals are created using if statements. You can chain multiple if statements together and the computer will run them from top to bottom.

When one of the conditionals is satisfied, the code inside the conditional will be executed. The remaining chained conditionals will not be run.

Some programming languages also support the switch statement, which allows programmers to write more concise conditionals.

Explain like I Like Examples

The following is a chained if-else statement written in JavaScript. It will print the sentence "A good day to play hide and seek." because the weather variable is set to "foggy".

var weather = "foggy";
if (weather == "sunny") {
  console.log("I will go outside and play.");
} else if (weather == "foggy") {
  console.log("A good day to play hide and seek.");
} else {
  console.log("<a href='/explain/javascript' style='font-weight: unset;'>JavaScript</a> is more fun anyway.");
}

Explain like I like videos

Programming

Programming is creating instructions for the computer to perform specific tasks. A person who writes programs is called a programmer. There are many different programming languages a programmer can write programs in.

Variable

A variable is a temporary storage unit in a program. You can think of it as a box. You can use this box to hold an item. You can retrieve the item stored, or swap it with another item.

Function

A function can be thought of as a machine that performs a specific task. Such as make sandwich. Every time you want a sandwich to be made, you just have to turn on the machine. Or execute the function, as programmers would say.

Loop

Loop is a program that repeats a set of instructions until it is asked to stop. As an example, we can write a loop program to print out "Hello" 3 times. Loop is a fundamental concept in programming.