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C/C++ > Online C exercises?

#62925 - debutvm - Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:26 pm

I have a c book and am currently about half way through it, although i need some exercises (begginer level) to go through to help me better understand how to use the coding. Sorry for the newbiness,

-Kyle

ps: how much C do you need to know before you dig into coding gba games?

#62928 - keldon - Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:52 pm

I think that being able to write algorithms is a must as it gives you added comfort for any programming challenge. Writing algorithms is the process by which you create a set of steps necessary to solving your programming problem.

Here are a bunch of topics I think are useful to know about which will help answer your question:
- Procedral Programming
- Object Oriented Programming
- Algorithms and Data Structure
- Discrete Structures
- Software Engineering

I will use wikipedia to aid my definitions - often copying from it. I will try not to go on too much.

Procedral Programming
Procedural programming is a programming paradigm based upon the concept of the procedure call. Procedures, also known as routines, subroutines, methods, or functions (not to be confused with mathematical functions, but similar to those used in functional programming) simply contain a series of computational steps to be carried out. Any given procedure might be called at any point during a program's execution, including by other procedures or itself.

Object Oriented Programming
In computer science, object-oriented programming, OOP for short, is a computer programming paradigm.

The idea behind object-oriented programming is that a computer program is composed of a collection of individual units, or objects, as opposed to a traditional view in which a program is a list of instructions to the computer. Each object is capable of receiving messages, processing data, and sending messages to other objects.

Algorithms and Data Structure
There are various data structures and standard algorithms which will solve many programming problems. An example of this is a queue - where you have a 'queue' of data which is read in the order in which the data is recieved.

Discrete Structures
Discrete mathematics, sometimes called finite mathematics, is the study of mathematical structures that are fundamentally discrete, in the sense of not supporting or requiring the notion of continuity. Most, if not all, of the objects studied in finite mathematics are countable sets, such as the integers.

Discrete structures are important and co work with algorithms and data structures.

Software Engineering
Software engineering is the profession that creates and maintains software applications by applying technologies and practices from computer science, project management, engineering, application domains, and other fields.

There are things called 'design patterns' by which a common solution to a specific design problem is applied. For example I would use the 'factory pattern' to construct a complex arrangement of objects. They are also really good for communicating complex solutions to co-workers when you can give the co-worker the pattern name instead of a long explanation of 'exactly' how you will achieve it.

#62931 - debutvm - Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:24 am

What is the u16 loop (saw the code in a gba game) and what does it do (easy terms please).

-Kyle

#62932 - keldon - Wed Dec 07, 2005 12:31 am

Do you mean:
Code:
u16 a;
for ( a = 0; a < 10; a ++){
   // code
}


It is a loop statement. The for loop statement contains 3 sections:
- (a) initialisation, which is executed when loop starts
e.g. a=0
- (b) loop condition, which must be true for loop to continue again
e.g. a < 10 ( meaning a is less than 10)
- (c) loop completion statement, which is executed at the end of each loop
e.g. a++ ( meaning: a = a +1)

The combination of these 3 statements within the for statement means that a starts at 0. The code in the loop will be executed; after which a is incremented by 1. This will happen until a is equal to 10; where the code will not enter the loop and code will continue after the loop.

#62983 - tepples - Wed Dec 07, 2005 2:38 pm

Don't use u8 or u16 as a loop counter on a 32-bit machine such as the GBA unless you want slow code. Use int, as it's all but guaranteed to be the fastest data type.
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