ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Inner loop

Have you ever played with a toy that has different parts that move around? Imagine you have a toy car with wheels that spin when you push it along the ground. Now imagine that the wheels are made up of smaller parts that also spin, but in the opposite direction to the big wheels. These smaller parts are like an inner loop.

An inner loop is a set of instructions that runs inside another set of instructions. It's like a smaller toy inside a bigger toy. Just like the small wheels inside the toy car’s big wheels.

In computer programming, an inner loop works similarly. It's when we write a set of instructions inside another set of instructions. We use it to repeat a task that is needed many times inside the larger task. For example, imagine you are baking cookies. You have to mix the ingredients together, roll out the dough, cut out the cookies, and bake them. To cut out the cookies, you'll need to use a cookie cutter, and you have 50 cookies to make. Instead of repeating the same set of instructions again and again for each cookie, you can put them inside an inner loop. This way, the computer will run the instructions for you, and you can relax and wait for the cookies to bake.

In summary, an inner loop is like a small toy inside a bigger toy or a set of instructions inside another set of instructions. Programmers use it to repeat a task many times inside a larger task, like making many cookies with one instruction set instead of repeating them again and again.