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Computer Programming for Absolute Beginners

You're reading from   Computer Programming for Absolute Beginners Learn essential computer science concepts and coding techniques to kick-start your programming career

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Product type Paperback
Published in Jul 2020
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781839216862
Length 430 pages
Edition 1st Edition
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Author (1):
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Joakim Wassberg Joakim Wassberg
Author Profile Icon Joakim Wassberg
Joakim Wassberg
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Table of Contents (19) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Section 1: Introduction to Computer Programs and Computer Programming
2. Chapter 1: Introduction to Computer Programs FREE CHAPTER 3. Chapter 2: Introduction to Programming Languages 4. Chapter 3: Types of Applications 5. Chapter 4: Software Projects and How We Organize Our Code 6. Section 2: Constructs of a Programming Language
7. Chapter 5: Sequence – The Basic Building Block of a Computer Program 8. Chapter 6: Working with Data – Variables 9. Chapter 7: Program Control Structures 10. Chapter 8: Understanding Functions 11. Chapter 9: When Things Go Wrong – Bugs and Exceptions 12. Chapter 10: Programming Paradigms 13. Chapter 11: Programming Tools and Methodologies 14. Section 3: Best Practices for Writing High-Quality Code
15. Chapter 12: Code Quality 16. Other Books You May Enjoy Appendix A: How to Translate the Pseudocode into Real Code 1. Appendix B: Dictionary

Iteration with the while loop

Let's assume that we want to write a small dice-guessing game. The user will need to enter a guess between 1 and 6. The computer will then roll a dice and let the user know whether their guess was correct or not. The program will then allow the user to guess again, and again, and again. However, if the user enters a value of 0 as their guess, we will let them exit the game.

We have no way of knowing how many times the user wants to play the game. They might give up after the first try or go on for hundreds of attempts (which is not that likely as this is a rather dull game, but you get the point).

A for loop would not work that well for us here as we would need to say how many times the user would need to play before we let them out of the loop. Instead, another type of loop that is perfect for this scenario is the while loop. This loop works on a condition instead of a count. If the condition is true, it will continue to loop.

The structure...

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