MS Coding Camp(working title)

[Thestatusquo]

vaguely following this.

[Elbirn]

/in as student

I make zero promises of being a good noodle but I do want to learn to code and my current college programming class is absolute garbage

I'll try to catch up on the lessons as I find free time, for now I go do other work

[Equinox]

Spoiler: Challenges

Code: Select all

using UnityEngine;
using System.Collections;

public class SendMessage : MonoBehaviour {

	// Use this for initialization
	void Start () {
        // Challenge 1
        Debug.Log(((4 % 2) == 0) && !((5 / 2) == 3) || ((5 / 2) == 3));

        // Challenge 2
        Debug.Log(!((3 / 2) == 1));

        // Challenge 3
        int number = 1;
        string hello = "Hello";
        Debug.Log(hello + number);

        // Challenge 4
        bool isFalse = false;
        Debug.Log(hello + isFalse);

        // Challenge 5
        Debug.Log(2 * 8);

        // Challenge 6
        int mersenne = 2147483647;
        Debug.Log(mersenne);
	}
	
	// Update is called once per frame
	void Update () {
	
	}
}

[singersigner]

I just closed everything but...I promise I did it. *thumbsup*

[theplague42]

I might as well /in teacher. As I said, I don't do Unity but I can probably help with the scripting.

[Sudo_Nym]

I got distracted by Pokemon, but here's my code:

Spoiler:

public class Variablation : MonoBehaviour {

// Use this for initialization
void Start () {
int number1 = 1;
double number2 = 1.0;
Debug.Log(number1 == number2);
Debug.Log(!(!(number1 == number2)));
Debug.Log(number1 == number2 || !(number1 == number2));
Debug.Log(number1 == number2 && (number1 == number2 || !(number1 == number2)));
number2 = 2.0;
Debug.Log(number1 == number2);
Debug.Log(!(!(number1 == number2)));
Debug.Log(number1 == number2 || !(2 * number1 == number2));
Debug.Log(number1 == number2 && (number1 == number2 || !(number1 == number2)));
string rando = "This is a message that I wrote for the purpose of concatenating";
Debug.Log(rando + " I have concenated it with the following double! " + number2 + " Behold!");
Debug.Log(rando + " Tremble in fear as I concenate it with a boolean that I calculate with this very line of code! " + (number1 == number2));
Debug.Log(number2 * 19);
Debug.Log(2147483647);
}

// Update is called once per frame
void Update () {

}
}

It seems to work as expected. I do have some questions, though, that I can't be bothered to futz with Discord right now to ask:
1) When I first create a project, it tells me that the line endings are inconsistent. What's the deal with this, and how do I deal with it? Right now, it just spawns a message that prompts me to fix automatically if I close and reopen, but I imagine there has to be a better way.
2) Is there a power operator? I wanted to print the max value for an integer the easy way, but then using ^ didn't work so I calculated externally and plugged it in. There's probably a better, mathier solution to this, though.

[chamber]

There is no power operator. You would need to use Math.Pow, I expected you to do exactly what you did, ^ is a bitwise xor.

[Cheetory6]

What code editor are you using? Visual Studio or Unity's? If VS, can I get a version #?

[chamber]

I've had the same issue. I assume he copy and pasted from here rather than typing everything manually.

[Cheetory6]

He said it's when he first creates any project so I'm thinking it's different.

[Equinox]

I had that message when I loaded HelloWorld for last week's lesson, too, but now I'm having trouble duplicating it. Visual Studio 12.

[Sudo_Nym]

I'm using the editor that came with unity, and I am typing everything manually. Code stick won't ruin until I close the editor, then reopen it to spawn the pop-up about inconsistent line endings.

[Cheetory6]

Spoiler: Intro to Control Structures

Today we're going to be covering control structures, which are an important set of tools used to direct the flow of your program. To understand what control structures do, we first have to cover exactly what the flow of a program is in general. Let’s revisit our code from the first lesson:

Code: Select all

void Start () {
  Debug.Log("Hello world!");
}

From your experience in the first two tutorials, you know that when you run this code, you’ll receive the Hello World message in the console. From later examples, you may have inferred that from the following code, you will receive the following messages in the following order in the following program:

Code: Select all

void Start () {
  Debug.Log("Hello world!");
  Debug.Log("How's it going?");
}

OUTPUT:

1 - "Hello world!"
2 - "How's it going?"

Given this, you probably understand that a program flows from top to bottom and in this case, the program will flow from the first open bracket to the second open bracket of the Start codeblock:

{ == START

step1
step2
step3
..
..
stepN

} == FINISH

The program will go line by line until it reaches that terminal bracket and then the program will terminate.

Spoiler: Codeblocks

Before we go any further with this example, now is probably a good time to elaborate a little bit on exactly what a codeblock is. Essentially, this is any grouping of code trapped between two matching curly brackets “{ }”. The outermost brackets will delineate their own codeblock and the innermost brackets will delineate their own codeblock.
IE:

{

==============

BLUE

{

==============

BLUE

RED

{

==============

BLUE

RED

GREEN

==============

}

BLUE

RED

==============

}

BLUE

==============

}

Anywhere marked as blue is within the blue brackets’ codeblock, anything marked as red is within the red brackets’ codeblock and so on.

Spoiler: If Statements

Most programs you're going to typically want to do something a little more complicated than just go from the start of the program to the finish every single time. Sometimes you're going to want to direct the flow of your program with these aforementioned control structures to achieve results that would otherwise require an absurd number of lines of code or would simply be impossible.

Recall back to our variables lesson. We covered a few different types of variables including booleans. At the time you may have wondered why a boolean would be considered important. It can be true or false. You might be wondering, “what’s so special about that?”
Well, booleans play a big role in the first control structure, the If statement [and the others too but we’ll get to that later]. An If statement is by definition “a programming conditional statement that, if proved true, performs a function or displays information.” In layman’s terms, an if statement is a coding tool that will run a section of code

ONLY

if it is given a boolean input that has a value of True.

Consider the following two If statements:

Code: Select all

if(true)
{
        Debug.Log("I am the code in the first If statement. You get to hear me.");
}

if(false)
{
        Debug.Log("I am the code in the second If statement. You do not get to hear me");
}

The brackets beside the If term contain the boolean value that is used to determine whether the code within the curly braces will be run or not. The first If statement has a value of true, and the contents associated with it will be run. The second If statement has a value of true, so the contents associated with it will not be run.

Hence, our output will be just:

“I am the code in the first If statement. You get to hear me.”

By extension of the last lesson, you can also provide a boolean variable as input to an if statement and you can even use full boolean expressions.

Spoiler: Garbage opinions that probably don’t matter much to new programmers

Something to consider is that doing the latter can lead to some bulky and ugly code in. A variable containing a boolean argument with a smart name will usually be easier to understand on revisit than a big block of boolean expressions sitting unlabeled within an If statement.
I’ll spare you the horror of some really nasty examples [partially because I don’t have time to go hunting for some of my worst offenses q.q], but trust me that you’ll thank me later if you really get into more complicated programming. Really try to practice putting complicated expressions into well named variables, especially if you’re ever planning on returning to code at a later date!

Spoiler: ElseIf/Else Statements

ANYWAY.
Continuing on with If statements, we’ll next be considering the Else statement. Essentially, an Else statement is an If statement in its own way. It’s a statement that if given a value of true, will run the code contained within its braces, except in this case an Else statement will

ALWAYS

follow an If statement of some kind and will

ONLY

run if the If statement that preceded it was skipped over because it was given a value of True as input.

If that’s potentially unclear, just consider the following example:

Code: Select all

if(false)
{
        Debug.Log("I am the code in the If statement. You do not get to hear me this time.");
}
else
{
        Debug.Log("I am the code in the Else statement. I am finally heard! >:D");
}

The else statement in this example has no condition, which makes sense given that it’s condition is kind of inherent. When the If statement before it is run, the Else statement is skipped. When the If statement before it is skipped, the Else statement is run. In this case, the latter is run and the second message is played:

"I am the code in the Else statement. I am finally heard! >:D"

Next up we’re covering the combination of the previous two concepts, the Else If statement. This may read a little confusing to you, so let’s start off with an example:

Code: Select all

bool condition1 = false;
bool condition2 = true;
if(condition1)
{
        Debug.Log("I am the code in the If statement. You do not get to hear me this time.");
}
else if(condition2)
{
    Debug.Log("I am the code in the Else If statement. My turn, nerd.");
}
else
{
        Debug.Log("I am the code in the Else statement. I am also not heard this time.");
}

An Else If statement will be run if all If/Else If statements before it are skipped over due to having a boolean input of false

AND

its own boolean input gives a value of true. In this case, condition1 is false, so the first If statement is skipped over and condition2 is true, so the Else If statement is run.

Spoiler: While Loops

For the other two control structures, we will be using a similar concept of using boolean expressions to guide the movement of our program, but we’ll adding the concept of Loops/Looping on top. A loop is essentially a section of code that gets repeated in the flow of program’s operation. We will first consider the While loop:

Code: Select all

int i = 0;
while(i < 4){
    Debug.Log(i);
    i++;
}
Debug.Log(“Escaped!!”);

The basic idea of the while loop, is that while the condition within the brackets is true the code within the curly brackets will repeat.
In this case, the while loop will repeat the code within its curly brackets until the variable i is no longer less than 4.

OUTPUT:

1 - "1"
2 - "2"
3 - "3"
4 - "4"

You have to be really careful when using while loops! There is the potential to create a set of conditions where a while loop will never have its condition become true and then the code within will repeat indefinitely and lock up your program. If you remove the contents of the code within the while loop above as follows, you will never get the “Escaped!!” message.

Code: Select all

int i = 0;
while(i < 4){

}
Debug.Log(“Escaped!!”);

OUTPUT:

Spoiler: Arithmetic Tangent

Before we move onto the last control structure, we need to cover a bit of a tangent. Programming has a lot of focus on condensing large amounts of code into something more compact and easier to digest. This extends as far as simple arithmetic. Programmers just don’t want to write out something like adding or subtracting a 1 to a number. Your first option for decreasing the size of your arithmetic-based expressions is to get rid of the variable and the operator on the right side of the equation by doing the following:
x+=1;

This statement essentially implies that the value of x is increasing by one.

You can do this with any value or any of the four basic arithmetic operators. Programmers weren’t satisfied with that, so they created increment/decrement operators [++ and -- respectively]. These essentially let you implicitly increase or decrease the value of a number without writing out an entire expression.

Consider the following example:

x++;

is equivalent to

x = x + 1;

which is equivalent to

x+=1;

The moral of the story is that coders want to be lazy [or neat, depending on how you want to look at it!].

Spoiler: For Loops

The final control structure we’ll be covering today is the For loop, which in many ways is very similar to the while loop, but with a little more in terms of working parts. Instead of just a generic boolean input, the For loop has three sections that have to be set before the code within can start repeating.
The most generic for loop declaration is as follows:
for(int i = 0; i < 4; i++)

Let’s break it down.
i) Initializing the counter variable - int i = 0
Set i to an initial value that it will take on at the beginning of the loop’s run.

ii) Setting the boolean condition - i < 4
Set a boolean variable that must no longer be considered true before the loop can stop running.

iii) Incrementing the counter variable - i++
A step that will occur every time the loop reaches the bottom bracket and goes to start the next iteration through the loop’s code.

So what does this mean in effect? Well, basically the For loop in this example will run the exact same as the While loop did in the last example. It will run the code inside its braces four times. One difference to consider is that the variable i will only exist within the For loop. If you try to access it before or afterwards, you’ll get an error. [If you experiment you may be able to find a similar effect in the If and While control structures!] We’ll go into more detail on why this is the case in future lessons, just something to note for now!

So, now we have a bunch of control structures. Big woop.
What can we do with them?
Well, surprisingly a lot, really. These are tools that you’ll find yourself using again and again and again as a programmer and it’s best if you really try to get a sense of how they work as best you can. Experimenting really helps here.

Spoiler: Nested Control Structures

One final thing to consider with control structures is that you can embed them within each other. [think back to the codeblocks example]
IE:

Code: Select all

if(...){
  while(..){
      if(..){
      }
      else{
      }
  }
}

The While Loop is within the first If’s codeblock and the If/Else are within the While Loop’s codeblock and the outer If’s codeblock.
This is called nesting or nested control structures.

If you’ve reached this point then you’ve completed this lesson! Congrats!

Spoiler: Challenges

1) Last week you were asked to print to the screen the largest possible value for an int. To do this you likely had to just calculate it outside of the program and then manually print that number. This week do the same thing, but do the calculation in unity using control structures.
2) Simplify the following hypothetical If/If Else statements into just two If statements [by hand, not in Unity]:

Code: Select all

if (condition) {
    if (conditionA) {
        codeBlockW;
    }
    else if (conditionB) {
        codeBlockX;
    }
}
else {
    if (conditionA) {
        codeBlockX;
    }
    else if (conditionB) {
        codeBlockW;
    }
}

3) A Fibonacci sequence is a series of numbers in which each number ( Fibonacci number ) is the sum of the two preceding numbers. The simplest is the series 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, etc. Print all of the Fibonacci numbers under 100 to the console.
4) Find the biggest prime number under 100.
5) Add together all numbers between 1 - 1000 that are not divisible by 3 or 5, except for numbers that are divisible by both 3 and 5.
include : 1,2,4,7,8,11,13,14,15
exclude 3,5,6,9,10,12

[GuyInFreezer]

Spoiler: challenges

Code: Select all

void Start () {
double ans = 1;
for (int i=1;i<=31;i++)
{
	ans = ans * 2;
}
ans--;
Debug.Log(ans);
}

Code: Select all

if ((condition && conditionA) || (!condition && !conditionA && conditionB))
{
	codeBlockW;
}
if ((!condition && conditionA) || (condition && !conditionA && conditionB))
{
	codeBlockX;
}

Code: Select all

void Start () {
int fib1 = 1;
int fib2 = 1;
int temp;
int total = 1;
while (fib 2 <100)
{
	total += fib2;
	temp = fib1 + fib2;
	fib1 = fib2;
	fib2 = temp;
}
Debug.Log(total);
}

Code: Select all

void Start () {
int foundit = 0;
int beg = 99;
bool isPrime = true;
while (!foundit)
{
	for(int i=beg-1;i>1;i--) {

		if (beg%i == 0) {
			isPrime = false;
		}
	}	
	if (isPrime == true) {
		foundit = beg;
	}
	beg--;
        isPrime = true;
}
Debug.Log(foundit);
}

Code: Select all

void Start () {
int total = 0;
for (int i=1;i<=1000;i++)
{
	if (i%3 && i%5)
		total+=i;
}
Debug.Log(total);
}

[Papa Zito]

Ok so hi I'm one of the teachers of this stuff and the reason I haven't been really active is cuz going through lessons like this isn't how I learn so it's also not how I teach. I do way better in both categories when it's interactive.

I'm wondering if there's any interest in setting a regular meet time where we'd all get on discord or w/e and we can go over the lesson or I can just answer questions. If so let's figure out what works best for ya'll. My best time is around 10pm CST most days but we can figure something out if that doesn't work for anyone.

[inte]

unity xd

c# xd

[Equinox]

I'm wondering if there's any interest in setting a regular meet time where we'd all get on discord or w/e and we can go over the lesson or I can just answer questions. If so let's figure out what works best for ya'll. My best time is around 10pm CST most days but we can figure something out if that doesn't work for anyone.

I'm somewhat free after about 7 PM PST (UTC-8).

[Claus]

If you guys are still doing this, this weekend the Ludum Dare game Jam will happen.

I think that game programming is a great motivator to put your skills to the test. It is surprising how much you can get done when you put yourself on a time limit.

http://ldjam.com/

Take a look, and join us!

[Ranmaru]

I want to become a student.

Any suggestions on reading/books to get for what teachers are teaching?

[chamber]

Me and Cheetory talked about it and we are heavily leaning towards canceling this. Participating from students has been very low. We don't think its worth our time for the ~3ish students actually doing things (no offense to them). And its certainly a terrible format for that many students.

[Ranmaru]

Alright going to read the lessons then.

[singersigner]

I'm sorry I only did the first couple of weeks. Holidays caught up to me at that point, and I've been bookmarking this to look back to once things quieted down a bit, but...yeah, it was a bit awkward to dedicate the mental capacity to. I had a lot of success going through codeacademy and if you thought that was something worth directing people to, and then offering some sort of tutoring for it with collaboration in the discord, that would be much more appealing to me.

Thanks for trying! It definitely peaked my interest when I wasn't focused on the whole mom thing... lol.

[Frozen Angel]

/in as teacher

if you think there aren't enough teachers already.

I thought java for a semester (well - as a teaching assistant) , I know android development and I already have some experiences in this. and I love to help - if its needed.

[pisskop]

pisskop has learned how to read c++ and wants to write new code from scratch

i havent done any textbook reading recently though

[chamber]

If someone wants to take this over PM me, I'll give them the OP.