On 22/02/12 18:50, leo degon wrote:
Hello All,
My name is Leo. I'm just beginning to learn python. I am
learning on my own and have no previous programming experience. I
decided to create a version of john conway's game of life as a personal
project.
OK, Thats quite a good project for a beginner because it will require ac
number of differentb concepts.
I've been wondering what GUI to use.
Personally I'd say don't. at least not for a start. Get the game working
on the console first then transfer it to the GUI later.
One of the fundamental paradigms for GUI program is the Model-View
paradigm where you have separate code to represent the logic of the
program - the model - from that which displays the UI - The view.
You can have different views of the same model. eg. a text view
and a graphical view. You can even have both open at the same time!
In your case start with a very simple text view using print
statements.
My idea is when the program initializes to have a root menu with a
series of options.
In GUI progrqamming beginners often start by thinking about the GUI
layout and controls. Thats usually the wrong place to start.
Start with the model.
In your case that's a grid or matrix with some cells filled in. You need
to cyclically recalculate the status of each cell based on the status of
the cells around it. (Hint: it may be easier to create a grid thats 1
cell bigger in every direction than your display...)
in-game options. I would like to be able to pause the game, run it at
different speeds, and add new live cells to the board. I would like to
have multiple boards able to run at once, and I would like the option to
save a board and its rules to load at a later time.
All good ideas but get the most basic one working first a hard coded
starting point that morphs into the second generation. Once that works
get the cycles running until you hit a key to stop. At that stage we
might think about introducing a GUI... But thats probably quie a long
way off just yet.
I'd like any ideas on how to approach this project in general and specific.
Build a little, test a lot.
Think about how you will test it before you build it (this is known as
test driven development - TDD - in software engineering circles. But
it's good for amateurs too!)
--
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
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