The Big Programming Thread - Page 422

On January 08 2014 03:17 Arnstein wrote:
I was bored, so I just did some random shit in C, but why doesn't it print the sum?
+ Show Spoiler +
It shows "Summen er" when I run it, but not the int!

On January 08 2014 04:36 Arnstein wrote:
CTRL+C does the trick I just wanted to look at how/if the number would go to 3.5 if I would take the average of X dice rolls, and then I could just CTRL+C when I wanted to stop.

while (true)

while (1)

bool loopShouldContinue = true;
while (loopShouldContinue) {
   // do your work
   // when you're finished
   loopShouldContinue = false;
   // or you could write
   break;
   // but then that may make the point of the boolean variable irrelevant 
   // it just depends on what you want to do exactly
}

#include <stdbool.h>

On January 08 2014 07:55 darkness wrote:


Then

while (true)

may be better to write instead. It's more readable than

while (1)

Or even better:

bool loopShouldContinue = true;
while (loopShouldContinue) {
   // do your work
   // when you're finished
   loopShouldContinue = false;
   // or you could write
   break;
   // but then that may make the point of the boolean variable irrelevant 
   // it just depends on what you want to do exactly
}

Don't forget to import

#include <stdbool.h>

if you use the boolean approach.

I've got a question. When you don't need a class instance to do something (e.g. to get an unsorted array and return a sorted one), is it advisable to make that method static in general?

On January 08 2014 08:18 darkness wrote:
1 looks like a typical case of a magic number to me. It's just sloppy/lazy coding imho. 'true' should be more readable for most people. The guy seems to be a beginner, so he shouldn't pick up bad habits like magic numbers.

On January 08 2014 08:50 Scorpion77 wrote:
don't really wanna make a new thread for this simple question but:
as someone new to programming and wanting to try it to see if it is for me, what website/resources should I try?
I've used codecademy/code.org a bit but they seem far too simple? surely this is not what programming is really like? Also I am not really sure if programming is something I want to pursue as a career/at university.
Anyone got any general advice from their own experience?

On January 08 2014 08:50 Scorpion77 wrote:
don't really wanna make a new thread for this simple question but:
as someone new to programming and wanting to try it to see if it is for me, what website/resources should I try?
I've used codecademy/code.org a bit but they seem far too simple? surely this is not what programming is really like? Also I am not really sure if programming is something I want to pursue as a career/at university.
Anyone got any general advice from their own experience?

On January 08 2014 07:55 darkness wrote:


Then

while (true)

may be better to write instead. It's more readable than

while (1)

Or even better:

bool loopShouldContinue = true;
while (loopShouldContinue) {
   // do your work
   // when you're finished
   loopShouldContinue = false;
   // or you could write
   break;
   // but then that may make the point of the boolean variable irrelevant 
   // it just depends on what you want to do exactly
}

Don't forget to import

#include <stdbool.h>

if you use the boolean approach.

#############################

I've got a question. When you don't need a class instance to do something (e.g. to get an unsorted array and return a sorted one), is it advisable to make that method static in general?

On January 08 2014 09:31 Manit0u wrote:


It depends what you want out of it. If you just want to check stuff out without anything really advanced then coding in ANSI C or C++ for console input/output only is the way to go in my opinion. This is relatively easy for simple stuff and gives you a very solid background if you'd like to move to something more complex or even entirely different (OOP, GUIs etc.).

Another way to approach this would be to grab something that doesn't require a lot of setup (assuming you're using Windows as your OS) and won't require manual compilation, debugging and all that crap. For that you could simply install Eclipse for Java as you get everything you need there and can run your programs any time you want to see how they work.

Other people will most likely suggest other things, but that's what worked for me in the beginning. I wouldn't get into PHP early on for example since it requires a ton of setup most of the time (PHP itself, virtual servers etc. etc.), at least on Windows I remember I used to get some headaches from that.

On January 08 2014 09:50 nunez wrote:


loopShouldContinue clearly does express the intention of the programmer precisely enough, it's even less expressive than while(1)!

try:
while(sinceThisProgramIsJustForMyOwnExperimentationThisLoopWillJustRunUntilITerminatedAtMyDiscretinonWithCtrlC)

On January 08 2014 07:55 darkness wrote:
Then

while (true)

may be better to write instead. It's more readable than

while (1)

On January 08 2014 11:30 Manit0u wrote:
Why do you hate curly braces so much? They are awesome, especially in the beginning, when they make it so much easier to identify blocks of code. That is, of course, if someone doing the programming actually uses some consistent formatting. It's a great way of learning that at start to put curly braces where they belong (not just around functions but all if statements, loops etc.)

Personally, I think that for someone just starting out this:

int main(void)
{
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i += 1)
    {
        if (condition)
        {
            do_stuff();
        }
    }
    
    return 0;
}

might be more readable and easier to break into parts than this:

int main()
    for (int i = 0; i < 5; i += 1)
        if (condition)
            do_stuff();
    return 0;

The above examples are incredibly simple, but as your programs grow and acquire more methods it might be a bit hard to follow for the beginner. When I was starting out I even put /* comments */ after the closing bracket for a method with its name in it, made moving around much easier.

def main():
	for i in range(0, 5):
		if condition:
			do_stuff()

On January 08 2014 20:05 darkness wrote:


Don't be so grumpy. The name of the boolean variable can be easily renamed, and it was just an example. You're just acting like an ass at the moment with your sarcasm.