title: What does it mean to return a value?
body: <p>I'm fairly new to programming, and I'm confused about what it means exactly to return a value. At first, I thought it meant to output what value is being returned, but when I tried that in my own code, nothing happened. </p>
  
  <pre><code>class Class1 {
  
      public static int x = 3;
  
      public static int getX(){
          return x;
      }
  
      public static void main(String[] args){
          Class1.getX();
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is an example of what I mean. When I run the program, nothing shows up. Considering this, I'm led to believe returning a value means something else. But what?</p>