Helpful Projects

I'm about to finish my course for the year, and was wondering if anyone had any ideas of things to program as practice so I don't forget everything over the next few months...

P.S. I'm stuck with console mode till my friend comes through with my pirate copy of MSVC++.

Pick up a copy of Pointers on C by Kenneth A. Reek. It's not only a fantastic reference on pointers and the C language in general, but the programming exercises at the end of each chapter can keep your skills sharp.

Here's a problem that I enjoyed doing, although it may be too simple...

Create a program called randwalk.exe, which creates a 10X10 map with the character A in the top left corner. Randomly choose one of the available directions to move, and put B in that map slot, repeat untill you get to Z... two example executions...
Succesful randwalk...

Code:

A...MNOP..
BCD.LK.Q..
..EFGJ.R..
....HITS..
.....VU...
....XW....
....Y.....
....Z.....
..........
..........

And unsuccessful randwalk...

Code:

ADE.......
BCF.......
MLGH......
NKJI......
OP........
VQR.......
UTS.......
..........
..........
..........
No where to put the next letter!

Hope it's understandable.

Too simple for me?... hardly... it's the simple things that seem to cause me the most problems... probably 'cause I'm being too cocky and try to rush through it

It's all practice... I think I'm starting to enjoy this programming lark...

Create a compiler so you don't have to pirate!

Originally posted by Nick
Create a compiler so you don't have to pirate!

Eh!? You're telling someone who's pleading for coding practice to go and program their own compiler...

Maybe I will buy it... Students can live without food for a few months... especially if they just want to know if it's worth it...


P.S. *pointer:

Cheers for that... I'll have to hunt that down...

Since there are many free compilers at http://www.compilers.net/ which are perfectly adequate for learning, hardly seems any point.

Windows compilers? I've been to that site a few times and grabbed a few free compilers... nothing seems to do the trick. I'm looking for something that comes with tutorials and the like.

Plus all the books I've seen on generic windows programming have examples which are guaranteed to run under MSVC++. There's nothing more annoying than wondering if the program you're learning from is full of bugs or the compiler is either sub-standard or runs differently.