Advice on how to organize my class's?

[GreatPumpkin]

Thanks you guys very much for the help. I have alot better understanding of pointers, however I'm still not incredibly sure of how to use the in script, for things like lyam_kaskade's pointer tutorial in the Turing Walkthrough http://compsci.ca/v3/viewtopic.php?t=9284. I asked my teacher and another student in the class, and they both suggest witching to c++. They both seemed surprised at the thought of using pointers for anything other than a last ditch effort. I knew there'd be a time to learn a new language, and guess that time is now. I will continue to work with turing I'm sure, but for now I'm focusing my efforts on learning c++, ya'll should expect lot's of questions from me in the c++ forum.

Thanks again for the help.

[Tony]

GreatPumpkin @ Thu Feb 27, 2014 2:21 pm wrote:

I asked my teacher and another student in the class, and they both suggest witching to c++. They both seemed surprised at the thought of using pointers for anything other than a last ditch effort.

This doesn't make sense. C++ will require you to use pointers at least as much.

[Insectoid]

Well, if you've got to use pointers, you might as well use a language with a decent implementation. I'm not a fan of Turing's.

[Raknarg]

I don't know much about pointers, would you like to elaborate?

[Dreadnought]

Insectoid wrote:

Well, if you've got to use pointers, you might as well use a language with a decent implementation. I'm not a fan of Turing's.

I agree that Turing's "pointers" aren't that great, but I find Turing has a decent approach to pointers and objects for beginners. I'm not sure that the implementation of pointers that C++ offers is worth all the ways in which you can shoot yourself in the foot when your starting out.

[evildaddy911]

greatpumpkin: i actually still use turing quite a lot. ive mostly switched over to java for the most part, but if its a relatively small project/doesnt require classes then ill use turing 100%. as a matter of fact, last semester i did my gr12 CS culminating in turing. its up on my github page if anyone wants to take a look

[Raknarg]

evildaddy you should look up Processing. I used to be like that with turing, but now I never use it. There's lots of limitations with turing, and this mkes you more comfortable with java:

www.processing.org

[GreatPumpkin]

Well I am beginning to learn c++, after the march break I'll be making my number guessing game, then some other stuff before starting interfacing, I'm thinking of making a thumb drive that holds a couple 2 or 4 bytes and use it for any future robots I make in class, I've got a design for one that'll read preprogrammed instructions.
Can you guys tell me for what types of things you'd use pointers in c++?
Also I believe I have created a solution to my problem with the child units and parent cities:

Turing:

class unitClass     export checkActive, damage, putAllInfo, putHealth, draw, add, getParentCityNo, moveUp, moveDown, moveLeft, moveRight     var unitNo, parentCityNo : int := 0     var unitHealth : int := 10     var x, y : int := 0     proc putAllInfo         put x, ', ', y         put unitNo, " from ", parentCityNo         put unitHealth     end putAllInfo     proc add (X, Y, No : int)         x := X         y := Y         unitNo := No     end add     proc remove         x := 0         y := 0         unitNo := 0         parentCityNo := 0     end remove     proc getParentCityNo (No : int)         parentCityNo := No     end getParentCityNo     fcn checkActive : boolean         if unitNo > 0 then             result                 true         elsif unitNo = 0 then             result                 false         end if     end checkActive     proc damage (D : int)         unitHealth -= D         if unitHealth = 0 then             remove         end if     end damage     proc putHealth         put unitHealth     end putHealth     proc draw         Draw.FillBox (x * 10, y * 10, x * 10 + 10, y * 10 + 10, black)     end draw     proc moveUp         y += 1     end moveUp     proc moveRight         x += 1     end moveRight     proc moveDown         y -= 1     end moveDown     proc moveLeft         x -= 1     end moveLeft end unitClass

I have a procedure called getParentCityNo, which has a single input integer. Inside the unitsClass I have an integer that holds the information of the parentCityNo. parentCityNo is set to whatever parameter is provided with getParentCityNo.

Turing:

class cityClass     import unitClass     export checkCitiesUnits, add, checkActive, checkActiveUnit, damageUnit, putUnitsHealth, putAllUnitInfo, drawUnits, drawUnit, addUnit, moveUnitUp, moveUnitDown, moveUnitLeft, moveUnitRight     var cityNo : int := 0     proc add (No : int)         cityNo := No     end add     fcn checkActive : boolean         if cityNo > 0 then             result                 true         elsif cityNo = 0 then             result                 false         end if     end checkActive     %units interactions     var unitsArray : array 1 .. 8 of pointer to unitClass     for i : 1 .. 8         new unitClass, unitsArray (i)     end for     proc pushCityNo (U : int)         unitsArray (U) -> getParentCityNo (cityNo)     end pushCityNo     fcn checkActiveUnit (U : int) : boolean         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true then             result true         elsif unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = false then             result false         end if     end checkActiveUnit     var citiesUnits : string := ""     proc checkCitiesUnits         citiesUnits := ""         for i : 1 .. 8             if unitsArray (i) -> checkActive = true then                 citiesUnits := citiesUnits + "1"             elsif unitsArray (i) -> checkActive = false then                 citiesUnits := citiesUnits + "0"             end if         end for         put citiesUnits     end checkCitiesUnits     proc addUnit (X, Y : int)         if checkActive = true then             for i : 1 .. 8                 if unitsArray (i) -> checkActive = false then                     unitsArray (i) -> add (X, Y, i)                     pushCityNo (i)                     exit                 end if             end for         end if     end addUnit     %%%%unit re-interactions     proc putAllUnitInfo (U : int)         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then             unitsArray (U) -> putAllInfo         end if     end putAllUnitInfo     proc putUnitsHealth (U : int)         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then             unitsArray (U) -> putHealth         end if     end putUnitsHealth     proc damageUnit (U, D : int)         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then             unitsArray (U) -> damage (D)         end if     end damageUnit     proc drawUnits         for i : 1 .. 8             if unitsArray (i) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then                 unitsArray (i) -> draw             end if         end for     end drawUnits     proc drawUnit (U : int)         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then             unitsArray (U) -> draw         end if     end drawUnit     proc moveUnitUp (U : int)         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then             unitsArray (U) -> moveUp         end if     end moveUnitUp     proc moveUnitDown (U : int)         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then             unitsArray (U) -> moveDown         end if     end moveUnitDown     proc moveUnitLeft (U : int)         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then             unitsArray (U) -> moveLeft         end if     end moveUnitLeft     proc moveUnitRight (U : int)         if unitsArray (U) -> checkActive = true and checkActive = true then             unitsArray (U) -> moveRight         end if     end moveUnitRight end cityClass

I've got a procedure called pushCityNo, what this does is when given the number of the unit that is needs to know it's parents cityNo, it runs the getParentCityNo proc mentioned in the last class on the specified unit, providing it's own cityNo as the parameter.

Turing:

var selectedUnit := 1 var selectedCity := 1 %%%interactions for cities var playerCitiesArray : array 1 .. 15 of pointer to cityClass for i : 1 .. 15     new cityClass, playerCitiesArray (i) end for proc addCity     for i : 1 .. 15         if playerCitiesArray (i) -> checkActive = false then             playerCitiesArray (i) -> add (i)             exit         end if     end for end addCity addCity playerCitiesArray (selectedCity) -> addUnit (1, 1) playerCitiesArray (selectedCity) -> addUnit (1, 5) playerCitiesArray (selectedCity) -> addUnit (1, 10) loop     cls     playerCitiesArray (selectedCity) -> checkCitiesUnits     playerCitiesArray (selectedCity) -> drawUnits     playerCitiesArray (selectedCity) -> moveUnitRight (selectedUnit)     playerCitiesArray (selectedCity) -> damageUnit (selectedUnit, 2)     delay (1000) end loop

Slap all three codes together to try it out for yourselves, I'm sure there'll be somebody else in the future that needs to know how to make parent/child arrays of class's.

[Dreadnought]

GreatPumpkin wrote:

Can you guys tell me for what types of things you'd use pointers in c++?

Anytime you have an array, that's a pointer. Most objects are manipulated by pointers and many data structures use pointers (trees, linked lists and graphs are some of the more common ones).

Also, anytime you want something to stick around when you go out of scope, you'll need a pointer (usually for objects/data structures).

GreatPumpkin wrote:

Also I believe I have created a solution to my problem with the child units and parent cities:

Your solution works, but it has some drawbacks.
Firstly, your units cannot know what a city is, all they can know is the number of city and no more. If a unit wanted to know something about its city, it would need to use some other system that would find the information needed and give it to the unit. If anything else wants to know about the city a unit belongs to, it must get the city number and use this separate system again to get to the city's data. This "separate system" ends up being a bit like the "God objects" Tony mentioned.
You also have a problem if you try to expand your program, if you want to include things like houses for example. Cities need to know about houses and houses need to know about cities. But houses need to know about the units living in them and the units need to know about their houses (and possibly more than just the house number). Now units have 2 numbers to keep track of and houses have at least 1 (possibly 2). Keep adding classes and you soon realise that your classes have numbers everywhere and can't know what these numbers mean. What you've created are pointers which can only be used by other objects (and require the aforementioned "God object").