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  • Journey and Rhythms
    Sunday, December 13, 2009

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  • I have no upcoming deadlines worth mentioning. Other then some grad school bills.

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  • I'm working on some top secret projects. Can't talk about them.

Math would never be the same…

I remember learning algebra in 8th grade. It was the first time I was introduced to a variable. It was a life altering experience. Math would never be the same. Programing in many ways is like algebra. You write expressions using variables so that you can figure out the range of outcomes.

I suppose in programming, variables are more specific. In processing you have to define a variable’s datatype. It’s like saying, “I like women, but only of the blond type. I want a value, but it’s only gonna be an integer”.

Important Life Saving Note
Functions, and specifically parameters of functions are very discriminating. You can’t shove a int into a function that expects a float. This is probably one of the top mistakes, not keeping you datatypes straight. I’ll teach you how convert data types later. If only converting people to programming were as easy.

Brick by Brick, Int by Int

Name Size in Bits Value Range
boolean 1 true or false
byte 8 -128 to 127
char 16 0 to 65535
int 32 -2,147,483,648 to 2,147,483,647
float 32 3.40282347E+38 to -3.40282347E+38
color 32 16,777,216 colors