" he says.
" My father always told me ''''Find a job you will love and you''''ll never have to work a day in your life.''''"
- Jim Fox
Frustrated!
Author
Every freakin day after i come back from school(7th g.) I start to program, and i program about 300 lines of code before my parents come from work. Every freakin time my dad says " Lets see what you did to your game today." He looks at my code, then he says its too "long" and "sloopy". Then he turns my whole thing in to 5 lines of code. ARGGG!!!!!! "Try this, " he says.
" My father always told me ''''Find a job you will love and you''''ll never have to work a day in your life.''''"
- Jim Fox
" he says.
" My father always told me ''''Find a job you will love and you''''ll never have to work a day in your life.''''"
- Jim Fox
Damn, you''re lucky. Stop whinning. Ask him how he figured out the better method.
I''ve turned a few hundred lines of code that I friend of mine wrote into two. The screen was divided into squares, and he wanted to know which one the user had clicked in. To do this he compared the bounds of all the squares against the mouse position. I simply divided the mouse position by the size of the squares.
Perhaps you''re thinking too concretely. Again, ask him how he got to his solution.
I''ve turned a few hundred lines of code that I friend of mine wrote into two. The screen was divided into squares, and he wanted to know which one the user had clicked in. To do this he compared the bounds of all the squares against the mouse position. I simply divided the mouse position by the size of the squares.
Perhaps you''re thinking too concretely. Again, ask him how he got to his solution.
Author
The solution was simple. He lowered the number of var''s i used, thus making the code shorter. Also he somehow deleted all the if functions, and said they''re not needed. The game is a strategy game. First i tryed to do it in isometric point-of-view. Then i said "What the heck" I cant draw an isometric box. Cause i suck at drawin. so i changed the game to normal 2d with 2d object''s the look 3d.
When I was in eighth grade I was in the chess club. I felt I was pretty good, and even got third place in a tournament. So when I go to visit my dad I ask if he wants to play chess. He''s like: "I used to play chess a lot when I was your age, but I haven''t played in years. Sure!" So we''re playin'' and I think I''m doing good when suddenly I''m checkmated.
The point is, if your dad is interested in the same thing as you, he''ll probably be better. You''re lucky, most of us only have a book that makes it sound easy(usually). And when we have no idea what the heck the book is doing, we can''t ask the author to explain.
Don''t feel too bad. Imagine what it would be like if your dad was a professional baseball player. You go to the park with some friends and whack the ball around, then your pop steps up to plate and blasts the ball to kingdom-come. And if your baseball playing dad told you how to hold the bad and when to swing, and you still can''t hit the ball very far... should you say to yourself: "I''m a bad ballplayer" or "someday I''m gonna be just like my dad?"
The point is, if your dad is interested in the same thing as you, he''ll probably be better. You''re lucky, most of us only have a book that makes it sound easy(usually). And when we have no idea what the heck the book is doing, we can''t ask the author to explain.
Don''t feel too bad. Imagine what it would be like if your dad was a professional baseball player. You go to the park with some friends and whack the ball around, then your pop steps up to plate and blasts the ball to kingdom-come. And if your baseball playing dad told you how to hold the bad and when to swing, and you still can''t hit the ball very far... should you say to yourself: "I''m a bad ballplayer" or "someday I''m gonna be just like my dad?"
Yeah, my dad was like that with my maths problems when I was at school (15 years ago)
It''s funny, I don''t think i''m any more intelligent than I was when I was 15 and I don''t think my dad is either. I''m more experienced than i was studying at university but that''s about it.
Your way of approaching the problem was what is called ''brute force''. If it works it''s a sign of ability and potential. As you get experience you will learn to think in more abstract ways, or to take advantage of knowledge and experience that you just don''t have now. If you asked your dad to do something only using brute force then he might have come up with something similar to you.
Anyway, you''re lucky to have someone to help you. Ask lot''s of questions and, if your dad goes too fast, ask him to slow down and take it a step at a time, explaining maybe a similar example that demonstrates why he''s thought up the solution he has.
Tell him you don''t want just to be shown the right answer or told you''re wrong, you want to learn. He''ll be delighted.
All the best
Pete
It''s funny, I don''t think i''m any more intelligent than I was when I was 15 and I don''t think my dad is either. I''m more experienced than i was studying at university but that''s about it.
Your way of approaching the problem was what is called ''brute force''. If it works it''s a sign of ability and potential. As you get experience you will learn to think in more abstract ways, or to take advantage of knowledge and experience that you just don''t have now. If you asked your dad to do something only using brute force then he might have come up with something similar to you.
Anyway, you''re lucky to have someone to help you. Ask lot''s of questions and, if your dad goes too fast, ask him to slow down and take it a step at a time, explaining maybe a similar example that demonstrates why he''s thought up the solution he has.
Tell him you don''t want just to be shown the right answer or told you''re wrong, you want to learn. He''ll be delighted.
All the best
Pete
Finding more efficient solutions to problems is something that comes with experience, and education (although not necessarily education in the school/university sense).
Just because you can''t see the best solutions now, doesn''t mean you''re stupid, or not cut out for programming. You just haven''t had as much experience solving problems, and so solutions won''t be as obvious.
It really is something that comes with experience. I look back and laugh at the code I produced when I was 15. Although that said, that''s probably partially because the only languages I knew at the time were Basic, visual basic, and comal (which is more or less just basic), and the most complex code I wrote at the time was a binary search for computing class.
University helped me a lot, one of the most important things I learned, was how to learn, and how to approach problems from a different angle (thinking out of the box so to speak).
Just because you can''t see the best solutions now, doesn''t mean you''re stupid, or not cut out for programming. You just haven''t had as much experience solving problems, and so solutions won''t be as obvious.
It really is something that comes with experience. I look back and laugh at the code I produced when I was 15. Although that said, that''s probably partially because the only languages I knew at the time were Basic, visual basic, and comal (which is more or less just basic), and the most complex code I wrote at the time was a binary search for computing class.
University helped me a lot, one of the most important things I learned, was how to learn, and how to approach problems from a different angle (thinking out of the box so to speak).
I would be incredibly grateful to have a parent(s) that could teach me anything academic.
[My site|SGI STL|Bjarne FAQ|C++ FAQ Lite|MSDN|Jargon]
Ripped off from various people
[My site|SGI STL|Bjarne FAQ|C++ FAQ Lite|MSDN|Jargon]
Ripped off from various people
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