michg24
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| Joined: 24 Feb 2013 |
| Total Posts: 275 |
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| 06 Mar 2014 04:28 PM |
| So i'm learning computer science I was wandering if LUA scripting can help me as well |
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| 06 Mar 2014 04:31 PM |
| I'm assuming that you're learning Java in your CS class. If you develop games with Lua(it's not an acronym, so it's not all uppercase), then it will help you in the long run, and even help you understand programming concepts in Java, but if you're trying to learn Lua at the same time as Java, it'll just get confusing. If you don't know any Lua, then I recommend sticking with Java, or whatever language you're learning. |
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morash
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| Joined: 22 May 2010 |
| Total Posts: 5834 |
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| 06 Mar 2014 04:32 PM |
| LUA scripting does not exist. This is not a troll. This is absolute honesty. LUA scripting does not exist. |
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chao50
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| Joined: 08 Nov 2008 |
| Total Posts: 1058 |
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| 06 Mar 2014 07:48 PM |
| Any programming languages or scripting language will help. It depends on what you want to do with computer science though. If you want to focus more on software (software engineering is better for that IMO), it will definitely help you exponentially no questions asked. Anything else though, and it will be a super nifty and cool thing you can do that will aid you when you need it. |
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Solotaire
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| Joined: 30 Jul 2009 |
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| 06 Mar 2014 08:32 PM |
Learning as many languages as possible, whether it be programming, scripting, or even markup, will help you in the long run. Each one has places where they are best utilized and the time spent learning them broaden the tools available to you.
The one thing I would like to warn you about is that you may experience additional errors when you switch languages. You can forget that you need a semicolon for Java, or forget that Lua uses 1-based instead of 0-based arrays. The affects shouldn't happen for that long each time, however, and the problem should eventually go away as you get more experienced. |
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MettaurSp
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| Joined: 20 Mar 2010 |
| Total Posts: 3179 |
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| 06 Mar 2014 08:48 PM |
| Solo, I never experience those problems and I am not too experienced in other languages. Must just be depending on the person. |
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Solotaire
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| Joined: 30 Jul 2009 |
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| 06 Mar 2014 09:04 PM |
| Yeah, it doesn't apply to everyone. It seems to be fairly common from where I live, so I thought I should mention it. |
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MrHistory
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| Joined: 30 Aug 2010 |
| Total Posts: 5291 |
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| 06 Mar 2014 09:18 PM |
| It doesn't matter how many languages you know. What matters is how good you are at solving problems and scripting on roblox will make you a better problem solver |
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| 07 Mar 2014 12:26 AM |
I hate 0-based arrays. Yunostartwith1plez. |
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| 07 Mar 2014 03:31 AM |
^ 0-based arrays are more logical if you study compsci.
EOS db 0x00 ;End of String Marker |
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| 07 Mar 2014 03:55 AM |
^
Not even if you study compsci but if youre familiar with C++ and more lower lever languages |
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| 07 Mar 2014 05:07 AM |
Yes, but C++ doesn't explain why.
EOS db 0x00 ;End of String Marker |
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| 07 Mar 2014 05:19 AM |
It's one thing learning the language. It's another thing knowing how to use them.
Half of the first computing test towards our A Levels involved either programming your own program or fixing another existing program. Many people seemed to fail that part, not necessarily because they didn't know the language, but because they didn't know how to use it to achieve the goal that they were told to reach.
One of the questions was something along the lines of finding the nth term of the Fibonacci sequence. I would imagine that it would be trivial for most of the regulars here (it is really easy!), but nobody could do it because they either didn't know the algorithm to do so or they couldn't put the code together to get a correct result. |
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michg24
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| Joined: 24 Feb 2013 |
| Total Posts: 275 |
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| 07 Mar 2014 03:29 PM |
| Great I know alot of ROBLOX Lua. |
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Solotaire
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| Joined: 30 Jul 2009 |
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| 07 Mar 2014 07:17 PM |
"One of the questions was something along the lines of finding the nth term of the Fibonacci sequence. I would imagine that it would be trivial for most of the regulars here (it is really easy!), but nobody could do it because they either didn't know the algorithm to do so or they couldn't put the code together to get a correct result."
Was knowing the Fibonacci sequence a prerequisite of taking the test? I don't think they should be expected to be able to program that unless they're given an explanation of how it works/the first few numbers of the sequence. Other than that, I don't see what would trip people up about the question unless they just didn't know something about the language, which I assume is what the test is designed to see. I know the sequence is fairly common, but the point still stands. |
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| 07 Mar 2014 07:54 PM |
@Solotaire
The sequence itself was taught in the syllabus, along with the algorithm to create it, but even then some people still couldn't write the code to make it work. Everyone in the test was expected to write in Visual Basic (eurgh!) which we were all taught the various programming concepts in, such as functions, variables, loops, etc. |
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| 07 Mar 2014 07:55 PM |
Ah fibonacci sequence, I heard many questions for beginner computer scientists are based off that. |
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Solotaire
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| Joined: 30 Jul 2009 |
| Total Posts: 30356 |
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| 07 Mar 2014 07:55 PM |
| Then yeah, definitely just their fault. |
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Dr01d3k4
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| Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
| Total Posts: 17916 |
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| 08 Mar 2014 07:50 AM |
@Decompiler: Did you do AQA AS Computing COMP1 + COMP2 last year? In the question where you had to implement a function to find fib(n), you were allowed to just write:
Function Fibonacci(ByVal n As Number) As Integer If (n = 1) Then ' They also wanted to start at 1, not 0 :'( Return 1 Else If (n = 2) Then Return 1 Else If (n = 3) Then Return 2 Else If (n = 4) Then Return 3 ' Etc End If End Function
And you got the marks for that. I think it was 6-10 marks out of 100 for the total paper as well.
@Arrays beginning with 0: Makes complete sense if you know pointer arithmetic. You can declare an array as either: int array[5]; Or: int* array = new int[5]; (At least I think this is correct - I know the theory but not sure of the syntax)
Then to index the array, you either do: array[2] Or: *(array + 2)
This works because when you declare an array, you get given a pointer to the first element in the array, which means you can do arithmetic on it, and array[n] expands out to *(array + n). Therefore if n is 0, you get the the first element in the array. |
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| 08 Mar 2014 08:20 AM |
Yes, those were the papers I did last year.
Even with that way of coding it, people still couldn't even do it! This could have been for various reasons, but hardly anyone I spoke to after the test actually said they got it right. |
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Dr01d3k4
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| Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
| Total Posts: 17916 |
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| 08 Mar 2014 08:31 AM |
Wow, same here. Apparently I only dropped 7 marks between both COMP1 and COMP2, and a couple of months ago we did a COMP3 mock; there are 10 people in our class (including me): 7 got Us, 2 got Ds and I got an A* XD I hate COMP4 btw - AQA should not be allowed to teach people to code because they follow too old standards (or just ignore all standards completely) and think things like "omg OOP is the best you must absolutely use it even if it doesn't fit because otherwise you can't code" etc. |
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| 08 Mar 2014 08:39 AM |
..yeah. Apparently, in our college only 5 or so people ended up getting a B overall or better in the ENTIRE YEAR. Don't worry, I was one of them.
I never really paid attention to the coding theories in lessons, because I had already known them already from Roblox Lua. And they said that Windows Forms was an A2 thing.. haha! |
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Dr01d3k4
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| Joined: 11 Oct 2007 |
| Total Posts: 17916 |
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| 08 Mar 2014 08:42 AM |
Lol yeah the AS coding part annoyed me, not even teaching useful things like switch, continue, difference between while-do and do-while loops etc, and the cryptography program we had for the exam was written in I think VS2006 as well using horrible syntax conventions.
The theory part wasn't much better - when teaching HTML they didn't even mention DOCTYPE! |
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| 08 Mar 2014 08:49 AM |
| Welp. I had to look up DOCTYPE then because I didn't even know about it! Just goes to show.. (I don't use HTML). |
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