Much of the work that I assign for programming language assignments follows the following general pattern. Here is the setup.

• Provide example code and explanations for concept A.
• Provide example code and explanations for concept B.

Here is the requirement.

• Implement something that combines concepts A and B into C.

By understanding A and B, including a lot of textual abstracting, one can then write/construct a program to do C.

Consider the following pattern (which could go on more in an extended example).

A good programmer would immediately visually recognize the pattern and, if asked, could write a simple program such as the following to output that pattern. Here is the C code [#1] #include <stdio.h> int main() { for (int i1=0; i1 <= 9; i1++) { printf("Two times %d is %d.\n",i1,2*i1); } return 0; }
Here is the output of the C code. Two times 0 is 0. Two times 1 is 2. Two times 2 is 4. Two times 3 is 6. Two times 4 is 8. Two times 5 is 10. Two times 6 is 12. Two times 7 is 14. Two times 8 is 16. Two times 9 is 18.
A not-so-good programmer would not see the pattern and might attempt the following.

Here is the C code [#2] #include <stdio.h> int main() { printf("Two times 0 is 0\n"); printf("Two times 1 is 2\n"); printf("Two times 2 is 4\n"); printf("Two times 3 is 6\n"); printf("Two times 4 is 8\n"); printf("Two times 5 is 10\n"); printf("Two times 6 is 12\n"); printf("Two times 7 is 14\n"); printf("Two times 8 is 16\n"); printf("Two times 9 is 18\n"); return 0; }
Here is the output of the Lua code. Two times 0 is 0 Two times 1 is 2 Two times 2 is 4 Two times 3 is 6 Two times 4 is 8 Two times 5 is 10 Two times 6 is 12 Two times 7 is 14 Two times 8 is 16 Two times 9 is 18

In both cases, the program has the same output.

The first program has less redundancy (repetition) and is considered the better program.

In general, the smaller the program that produces the same effect is considered the better program.

Specifically, the better program is smaller but also minimizes any non-computer-checked redundancy.

That means that any parameter or concept that is important in the program and that could be changed should be changeable in one and only one place.

Note: If the computer is checking the redundancy (and not a human) than that redundancy is not necessarily bad. (Backup systems are redundant but useful). And there is redundancy in a program that cannot be avoided (e.g., variables with the same name - when they represent the same or different memory locations).

Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives has a foundation of knowledge and remembering and a goal of abstract problem solving - evaluation and creating.

Briefly, each was given a small amount of time to look at a chess board with chess pieces and then asked to reconstruct what they saw.

On board positions where pieces were placed such that they had realistic strategic meaning in a chess game, the beginners tended to make mistakes at random while the experts tended to place entire groups of pieces incorrectly, but with a somewhat similar strategic positioning. On the other hand, when the pieces were placed at random, the experts were found to be no better than beginners at reconstructing the board. One conclusion is that while the expert and the beginner see the same board, the expert chunks the information into a meaningful context. As such, the expert does not see bad moves.

One would postulate that professional musicians can chunk entire phrases of music at a time, while beginning musicians may be stuck with one note at a time. And so on in other areas.

This same phenomena occurs in programming language notation. While the beginning programmer tends to be confused by rules of syntax, the experienced programmer is more concerned with semantics and can often, at a glance, take in an entire page of programming text, so long as it adheres to familiar guidelines of making us of white space such as blank lines and consistent indentation to reduce visual noise. Just like the expert chess player and the expert musician, the expert programmer simply does not see bad program syntax, greatly simplifying the task of programming.

• On every left brace, indent the following lines one tab stop.
• On every right brace, undent the following lines one tab stop.

If you mix tabs and spaces, what looks good to you may not look good in other editors.

Good style:	Bad style:
main ... { while ... { if { } } }	main ... { while ... { if { } } }

Blank lines can be used to group parts of code that logically go together.

You should not use more than one blank line. It uses more rows on the valuable screen space and does not help much for chunking.

Use a visually consistent style.

• Consistent declarations - say before initializations and not interspersed in the code.

General rule: Do similar things in the same way.

Avoid the single line if statement.

Always use the full if with braces and the else part if needed. Do not omit the braces.

Use:

Avoid:

For all advice: Unless you have a really good reason.