Beginner’s Programming Homework

Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 | Resources

Originally posted on the CProgramming forums:

I actually found the initial problem at http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs113/2005fa/#assign. Just click on the homework assignments. You could google for college-level homework assignments for c programming and find others also. This just happened to be the first one I picked when I did the same.

An excellent point, and one I should have addressed before. Being given an assignment and working your way through to a solution is an excellent way to learn programming, perhaps one of the best. In addition to the excellent assignments offered up already let me put together a short list of assignments I can suggest:

1. Make a number guessing game. The computer chooses a random number and the user makes guesses until they get it. After each guess the computer responds by giving the user a hint. Here are a few hint systems:
   • Higher/Lower - The computer tells if the guess is higher or lower than the target number. Compare your solution with Letter Guess.
   • Warmer/Cooler - The computer tells you how far you are from the number with some sort of distance based clues. One solution would be similar to Stars. A more robust solution would be for a certain distance from the number to compare a guess to the previous guess and tell if they are getting closer (warmer) or further (cooler), then when they are within a very close distance begin to give clues like “You’re hot/You’re on fire/You’re burning up!” until they get the right answer.
   • Trap - The user inputs 2 numbers and are told if the target number is above, below, or between the numbers guessed.
2. Make a 2D or 3D number guess game where the user has to input the X, Y and Z coordinates of their guess. Hints are similar to 2D games above. See Hurkle for an example.
3. Write a program that calculates the minimum number and type of bills/coins you would need to make up an amount of money that the user inputs.
4. Write a program that chooses from a list of adjectives, nouns, verbs, adverbs, and conjunctions and builds sentences. Bonus points if the sentences are put together in ways that could be considered poetic.
5. Write a palindrome checker.
   • Numerical palindrome checker - The program will check if the digits of a number input by the user can be reversed and read the same. (Must take input in the form of an int.) Examples of numerical palindromes: 101, 259952, 4114.
   • Sentence palindrome checker - The program will check if the words of a sentence can be read the same in reverse order (ignoring punctuation and capitals). Examples of sentence palindromes: “fall leaves after leaves fall.” “Girl, bathing on Bikini, eyeing boy, sees boy eyeing bikini on bathing girl.” and:

   “Son I am able,” she said “though you scare me.”
   “Watch,” said I
   “Beloved,” I said “watch me scare you though.” said she,
   “Able am I, Son.” (From They Might Be Giants - I Palindrome I)

   • Letter palindrome checker - The program will check if the letters of a word or phrase (excluding spaces and punctuation) can be reversed and read the same. Examples of letter palindromes: “Civic.” “Race car.” “Was it a rat I saw?” “Neil, a trap! Sid is part alien!”
   • Bonus points for programs that can check a whole list of numbers, sentences or words and output the ones that pass.
   • Bonus points for a super palindrome checker that can check any word, phrase, or sentence and tell what type of palindrome it is if it is one. Example: “Level, madam, level!” is both a letter and a sentence palindrome.
6. Write an encrypting and decrypting program that will allow you to send encoded messages.
   1. Start by replacing letters for numbers so A is 1, B is 2, C is 3 and so on. So MEET TONIGHT becomes 13-5-5-20 20-15-14-9-7-8-20
   2. Add a shift to the numbers so that you have to input the message and a key that explains where to start numbering your code. So MEET TONIGHT with a shift of 3 becomes 16-8-8-23 23-18-17-12-10-11-23. Note: Any number greater than 26 should be wrapped back around so you still only have the numbers 1-26.
   3. Add a step to the encryption so that after every letter the shift increases by the step. That way each letter is encoded differently and you can’t do a simple replacement. So MEET TONIGHT with a shift of 3 and a step of 2 becomes 16-10-12-3 5-2-3-26-26-3-17. (Again, remember to keep all your numbers between 1 and 26 by wrapping around numbers greater than 26.)
   4. After shift and step translate the numbers back into letters. So MEET TONIGHT is now PJLC EBCZZCQ.
   5. Now in order to decode the message the decoder will need the same shift and step and then run the process backwards. (Note that if you have a shift of zero and a step of zero the message will remain unchanged.)
7. Convert an old BASIC type-in to C/C++. Try to remain as true to the original game’s rules as possible. Feel free to format the output as you like it to make it more playable.
8. Make a program that will play your favorite board or card game with you, especially if one side of the game is more boring. See Battleship, Bagels, Jumping Balls, Acey Deucy, Tic-Tac-Toe, Awari, or Black Box for examples.

Now class, when you finish writing your program send it in so I can grade it. Maybe your program could be featured on Cymon’s Games!

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