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I'm a beginner in programming and I'm studying C++ using Programming principles and practice using C++. Today Now I'm studying the chapter about the errors and in one paragraph the author explains the importance of estimation, but I have a problem because I cannot understand why estimation ( remember that I have just 2 months of experience in programming ) is so important.
Let me explain in a better way :
To give me an example of estimation the author makes an example where we have to imagine that he wrote a program that calculates the driving distance between two cities, and we want to know whether a given value is reasonable, for example: is a reasonable driving time of 15 hours between New York and Denver? Obviously to come to a conclusion we need to know the distance (looking on the web) between New York and Denver.
My question is: why can not we just check on the web if the result of our program is that correct? Why make estimates appears to be so important? Why the author states that make estimates can avoid us a lot of wasted time and confusion?
Because sometimes you cannot look things up on the web. Imagine a sales management app that calculates the discount on a sale. You cannot google that to find the answer. But if you write the app and it returns a discount of 10,000,000$ on an order of 100$ then that's probably wrong.
What he is really saying is that you will write much better programs if you understand the problem domain, ie you understand what its supposed to do
Imagine being asked to write a program that computes the frunk ratio of the splidge grouters given that each froop has 12 enzags. Is 42 a good answer? Many times I have seen devs in this situation - they have 0 idea of what the program is actually doing and so cant tell if they are writing junk
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New to C++ and stuck on how to start coding this problem which is an Ecology question at first to start a cell with plants antelopes and tigers. Based on initial population, birth rates, food supply, dying off and migration into other cells (once 1 cell is discovered then can expand more). Did some tests on paper to see that plants are going to need a Cap because plants multiply more than antelopes can eat them. I dont really know how to start this if anyone can give me a starting point then that will be grateful.
Thank you.
I sounds like you're trying to build an individual, agent-based, or microscale model: this being subsets of the more general topic of discrete event simulation. Looking into those topics and reading some of the literature and books around them would be a good start.
One way to get started conceptually might be to play with SimPy. Once you think you understand how its pieces fit together and how to build a model, you'll be in a better position to move to a higher-performance language, like C++, where you'll need to build more of the components yourself.
You should also learn how to program. Having to ask a question as general as you are at the beginning of this endeavour should give you pause: people have devoted careers figuring out how to do this the right way. That said: C++ is a decent choice of language because you'll need to run your model not just once, but tens of thousands of times, in order to get an idea of how variable your results are. Remembering that the number of interactions between variables grows exponentially in the number of variables, you'll also want to explore different combinations of environments with an eye to testing the strength of your assumptions.
All of this will also probably require the use of a high-performance environment: you'll want to learn about MPI, R's HPC packages, jug, or Spark: each of which would have to be tamed to work with your implementation of the model.
This paper I recently published has a relatively simple agent-based model, along with an analysis and source code, which might help you get started. It may also help you understand the enormity of the undertaking you propose.
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I have a parallel programming project that I have to do in C++ and openMP that's due in a week, and I was wondering if someone could give me an idea on something a beginner in both C++ and OpenMP can accomplish in this time. I've got pretty extensive experience in Java, but this class randomly started us on C++ without it being introduced to us before had (and I understand 80% of learning code should be on my own time, but I expected more forewarning before they throw a new language at us). The instructor hasn't given us any ideas, our labs have just been tutorials through basics, and our lectures have been about how to implement bits and pieces of parallel programming... so I'm at a loss at what would be good enough for a class project. It's an elective class, so he's not expecting much, but I just don't know where to start. Thanks guys
Basics examples for OpenMP are computing PI and matrix multiplication.
More interesting topics may be:
Image convolution (edge detection, sharpening, blurring, etc.). You could use NetPBM image format for simplicity.
K-Means clustering.
You could find serial C++ examples in the Internet and adopt them to OpenMP, which is relatively easy task.
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Besides taking classes I mean. I want to make myself stand out from the crowd. I am very good at building logic/algorithms. Like I can implement any problem in C. But I don't know how to harness it! Like what to code!?!
All I have made upto this point is games that too in C's console, using ASCII and character arrays. Snake, Sudoku (making a puzzle and solving too), rip-off of Mario Bros., tictactoe with AI. But making games won't get me anywhere.
I was wondering if I could get suggestions from you guys?
I know C++/C and a little Java. I have just got started with data structures. So, it would be great if it would be relevant to data structures. I know about most trees and types of data structures. Thanks a lot for your help.
I know it's off topic but I have nowhere else to turn to.
Pay attention in your finite automata classes. Learning the basis of all languages makes "knowing" a language irrelevant.
If your school offers it, take some business computer systems classes.
Try to get some project management experience under your belt. This could be done by doing work for charity or an internship for a prof.
Of course there is always open source projects as well.
Get a job. I was working for a small development shop as a second year student.
Open your own company, and start doing some mobile apps. The sky is the limit.
If you want to have long term impact, you can do one of two things:
Be a genius, and invent a new gizmo everybody needs. [Extra points].
Build a foundation for something. Add to it cleanly, continuously. Eventually it will have enough mass to have an impact.
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I want to practice problem solving in C/C++. But I want to avoid writing the whole program from scratch. Is there any website where they give me puzzles and the code skeleton along with it and expect me to only fill a function or two to solve the problem at hand? This would save a lot of time and I can concentrate only on the problem solving part.
Thanks.
Advent of Code posts new problems every year starting on Dec 1. The problems have a Christmas-themed story, involving Santa Claus and his elves. There are leader boards so you can compete with your friends. You can also revisit previous years problems and solve them.
Project Euler has almost 400 programming puzzles. There are no frameworks, but the first few puzzles are simple enough that this shouldn't be a problem.
TopCoder Is an online coding competition site. You can open past problems in their competition arena applet for practice. All you need to do is write the one function described in the problem. However, the problems have a wide range of difficulty. Even the easiest ones are more difficult than the beginning ones at Project Euler.
I don't know any website that works the way you said, but most of these is just simples. You just have to read from standard input and print to standard output.
http://www.spoj.pl/
http://www.topcoder.com/
http://code.google.com/codejam/
Also, most of the problems of the same site will work the same way, so once you solve your first problem, you just have to use its skeleton to solve others.
There are so many. Few of them are :
http://www.leetcode.com/
http://cpp-wiki.wikidot.com/
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/
http://www.coderholic.com/10-more-puzzle-websites-to-sharpen-your-programming-skills/
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Hi finished doing 3 IT diplomas, I have customer service experience, have just started an open source project and will be joining some others already going...
Had anybody got any other hot tips on how to get my foot in the door with a programming job?
Anything, be creative with your answer... or don't be... anything will be good from someone already programming for work...
Cheers folks, Hope you're having a good one :)
firstly question yourself, why do you want to get into programming? what is it about programming that motivates you?
then ask yourself if you were given a choice between a programming job and a job doing something other than programming, how much would you want to do the programming job?
once you know the answers to those questions, getting a job won't be a problem.
it is a matter of motivation. you sound somewhat motivated to me since you are doing OSS work (keep it up).
i've been programming for the last few years, but starting to get the jaded feeling, and losing the motivation, so will probably move to a different field at some point soon, then look into whether it was a sincere desire to understand programming or just doing the work to pay the bills.
remember there are always companies out there looking for good programmers, so it's not a matter of if but when you will get a job, so be a bit picky if you know you have the skillz.
also don't take yourself too seriously. make sure you have fun. if you're not having at least some fun in programming, do something else.
I would suggest the following:
Write an appealing resume/CV
Use internet job sites such as www.jobserve.com and www.monster.com
Investigate companies in your area who might be recruiting
Get and read a copy of "What color is your parachute!"
I think times are perhaps a bit tougher these days but I found my first programming job during the dot-com bust back in the early 2000s so if its anything like back then there are still plenty of jobs around...
Hope this helps!
nick.