Question

I’m teaching/helping a student to program.

I remember the following process always helped me when I started; It looks pretty intuitive and I wonder if someone else have had a similar approach.

1. Read the problem and understand it ( of course ) .
2. Identify possible ‘functions’ and variables.
3. Write how would I do it step by step ( algorithm )
4. Translate it into code, if there is something you cannot do, create a function that does it for you and keep moving.

With the time and practice I seem to have forgotten how hard it was to pass from problem description to a coding solution, but, by applying this method I managed to learn how to program.

So for a project description like:

A system has to calculate the price of an Item based on the following rules ( a description of the rules… client, discounts, availability etc.. etc.etc. )

I first step is to understand what the problem is.

Then identify the item, the rules the variables etc.

pseudo code something like:

function getPrice( itemPrice, quantity , clientAge, hourOfDay ) : int     if( hourOfDay > 18 ) then       discount = 5%     if( quantity > 10 ) then       discount = 5%     if( clientAge > 60 or < 18 ) then       discount = 5%           return item_price - discounts... end 

And then pass it to the programming language..

public class Problem1{     public int getPrice( int itemPrice, int quantity,hourOdDay ) {         int discount = 0;         if( hourOfDay > 10 ) {              // uh uh.. U don't know how to calculate percentage...               // create a function and move on.             discount += percentOf( 5, itemPriece );             .             .             .             you get the idea..          }      }     public int percentOf( int percent, int i ) {              // ....      }   } 

Did you went on a similar approach?.. Did some one teach you a similar approach or did you discovered your self ( as I did 🙁 )

Answer 1

I did something similar.

• Figure out the rules/logic.
• Figure out the math.
• Then try and code it.

After doing that for a couple of months it just gets internalized. You don’t realize your doing it until you come up against a complex problem that requires you to break it down.