Comments for Jon Garvin

Comment on Code Repetition by Jon

Jon — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:08:47 +0000

Since you (presumably) know the randomly-generated number beforehand, a for loop would be a better choice. Using a "start" value of 1, and a "stop" value of n+1 (since Python does not include the "stop" value in its iterations), you can loop through the values 1-n. Inside of this loop, use another variable to keep a cumulative sum of these values. Here's an example that uses n=10. You can change the code to read a value from the user, or to generate a random value using the random module.

n = 10
total = 0
for count in range(1, n+1):
   total += count
print(total)

Comment on Code Repetition by C

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 10:33:00 +0000

how would you create a program that will determine the sum of the numbers from 1 up to a randomly generated number?

Comment on Tuples and Lists by Jon

Jon — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:51:28 +0000

1. Your 14 variables contained in the list are redundant, and defeat the real benefit of using lists. Eliminate them completely, as discussed earlier.
2. Ensure that in your drawBoard function that you are actually printing the updated values, and not a) local variables with the same names, or b) completely different variables.

Comment on Tuples and Lists by N

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:12:42 +0000

My program is allowing me to sow seeds however, it won’t update to the board. I printed out each house as a tuple, and it updates there but not on the drawBoard function itself. I have made a list containg all my houses as follows:
L=[H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6,SK,H7,H8,H9,H10,H11,H12,NK]
but it just won’t update.
Any suggestions?

Comment on Tuples and Lists by Jon

Jon — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:01:07 +0000

Yes. In this version of Kalah, landing in an empty house on your own side always results in a capture, even if there are no seeds in the opposite house. In this case, the only seed captured is your last seed. Ideally, you should be sowing the seeds, then noting the house in which your last seed falls, and calling canCapture. If True, then proceed appropriately.

Note that in the original game of Kalah, a capture does not result in an additional turn. The version you are programming is even more biased toward the first player.

Comment on Tuples and Lists by T

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:22:33 +0000

re: project kalah
Now I know canCapture function means … it can capture its own seed, no concern for rival side, and the function returns true. Is that right?

Comment on Tuples and Lists by Jon

Jon — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:46:07 +0000

To clarify the test, my board uses 1-6 as South’s houses, then 8-13 as North’s. The board looks something like this.

NK 13 12 11 10 09 08
01 02 03 04 05 06 SK

The indices are off-shifted by one. You may need to adjust your tests appropriately. Hope this helps.

Comment on Tuples and Lists by T

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:49:00 +0000

re: cumulative project: kalah
It works fine with suggestive input until sixth…

Comment on Tuples and Lists by Jon

Jon — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:21:13 +0000

Printing vertically is a bigger challenge, but not out of the question. First, get your horizontal histogram printing properly. Now, rotate it sideways and look at what you have — all shorter bars will have empty spaces as padding before the larger bars are printed. You just need to figure out how to work the padding inside of your loop(s).

Comment on Tuples and Lists by R

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:41:04 +0000

Any tips for question I?