// Try #1 - May 1, 0900hrs
//    code
//    code  
//    code
// Try #2 - May 2, 1700hrs   Okay, plan B.  What if I do it *this* way
//    code
//    code  
//    code
// Try #14 - May 3, 0500hrs after 5 cans of RedBull.  Maybe I should get some sleep. I can't think of anything else but this last idea
    code
    code  
    code

• Plan before you start typing code
  
• Do not wait until the last minute to start your homework. We don't want to read "Its do tomorrow and I really need your help." All this tells us is you're the guy that waits until the last minute and makes the rest of the department look bad, so we don't want you in this industry because you might end up working in the cubical next to us and make US look bad.
  
• Plan before you start typing code
  
• Do not fake your way through the class thinking all this confusion will suddenly and miraculously become clear somewhere around the 10th chapter. IT WON'T. Speak up quickly when you feel yourself slipping. There is no shame in asking for clarification. You're paying tens of thousands of dollars for an education. Wring every bit out of it you can; just like if you pay that much for a car you are going to make the salesman throw in a good stereo and upgraded extra you need to make the professor throw in as much as you can get out of him/her.
  
• Plan before you start typing code
  
• You have to program as if everything breaks, nothing works, the cyberworld is not perfect, the attached hardware is flakey, the network is slow and unreliable, the harddrive is about to fail, every method will return an error and every user will do their best to break your software. Confirm everything. Range check every value. Make no assumptions or presumptions.
  
  
• Take the extra 3 seconds to rename your controls each time you drag them onto a form. The default names of button1, button2... button54 aren't very helpful. If you rename them right away to something like btnOk, btnCancel, btnSend etc. it helps tremendously when you make the methods for them because they are named after the button by the designer.btnSend_Click(object sender, eventargs e) is a lot easier to maintain than button1_click(object sender, eventargs e)
  
  
• You aren't paying for variable names by the byte. So instead of variables names of a, b, c go ahead and use meaningful names like index, timeOut, row, column and so on. You should avoid 'T' for the timer. Amongst other things 'T' is commonly used throughout C# for Type and this will lead to problems. There are naming guidelines you should follow so your code confirms to industry standards. It makes life much easier on everyone around you, including those of us here to help. If you start using the standards from the beginning you don't have to retrain yourself later. You might want to look at some of the naming guidelines. Its a lot easier to start with good habits than to break bad habits later and re-learn.
  
  
  • Guidelines for names
    
  • Naming guidelines
    
  • Design guidelines for classes
  
  In other words I don't want to see this:
  

  for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
  {
     for (int j = 0; j < 20; j++)
     {
        // Do some work
     } 
  }
  

  
  when you can write something we can all read, even you at 3am after 4 cans of Red Bull
  

  for (int DataRowCounter = 0; DataRowCounter < 10; DataRowCounter++)
  {
     for (int SalesPersonCounter = 0; SalesPersonCounter < 20; SalesPersonCounter++)
     {
        // Do some work
     } 
  }
  

  
  
  
• Don't think you're the first person to come here with a CIS101 homework question. Do a search of the site. There are probably 10 other threads for doing a console application that prints a diamond pattern etc.

• Debugging video 1: Breakpoints and Local variables
  
• Debugging video 2: Advanced breakpoints
  
• Debugging tutorial
  
• Debugging tips
  
• Debugging in detail
  
• Great debugging tips
  
• It still doesn't work, article
  
• Debugging tools survival guide
  
• Video: Tips & Tricks to use Visual Studio to the fullest

      *
     ***
    *****
   *******
    *****
     ***
      *

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace DiamondPattern
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {

            #region Instructions
            //Instructions: Get a number from the user and make an increasing 
            // number of dots then a decreasing number of dots until you have a diamond

            //   *
            //  ***
            // *****
            //*******
            // *****
            //  ***
            //   *

            // Pattern: 1, 3, 5, 7, 5, 3, 1

            // Plan: Loop from one up to target.  Loop from target back down to one
            #endregion

            #region Fields/Variables
            #endregion Variables

            #region Get the target number from the user
            #endregion

            #region Loop going up
            #endregion Loop going up

            #region Loop counting down
            #endregion Loop counting down

            #region Get [ENTER] from user just to hold the console open
            #endregion

        }
    }
}

• Row 0 ... 0 * 2 + 1 = 1
  
• Row 1 ... 1 * 2 + 1 = 3
  
• Row 2 ... 2 * 2 + 1 = 5
  
• Row 3 ... 3 * 2 + 1 = 7

• Row 0 ... 8 spaces, 1 asterisk
  
• Row 1 ... 6 spaces, 3 asterisks
  
• Row 2 ... 4 spaces, 5 asterisks
  
• Row 3 ... 2 spaces, 7 asterisks
  
• Row 4 ... 0 spaces, 9 asterisks

• Starting with 0
  
• Prefix of 555
  
• Not enough numbers

Rookie said:

tlhIn`toq said:

Rookie said:

• You know you need questions and their corresponding answers.
  
• You know you're going to need some means of loading these from files off the drive.
  
• You know you're going to need some logic code for selecting questions and tracking scores.
  
• You don't know it yet, but you probably want to get in the habit of create some type of logging system so your application can log what it is doing so you can hunt down bugs users report.
  
• None of that involves the GUI.

Class Question
{
   string QuestionText { get; set;}
   List<string> Answers {get; set;}
   int CorrectAnswer;
}

Q: Four score and ____ Years ago, our forefathers...
A: five
A: six
A: seven
A: eight
C: 3
Q: Fourteen hundred and ninety _____ , Columbus sailed the ocean blue...
A: one
A: two
A: three
A: four
C: 2

class GameEngine
{
    string QuestionFilePath {get; set;}
    List<Question> Quiz;
    List<int> AvailableQuestions; // When a question is randomly selected we take it's index out of this list so we don't choose it again

    public static EventHandler<QuestionEventArgs> NewQuestion;

    public void SelectNewQuestion()
    {
       int newQindex = SelectRandomQuestionIndex();
       QuestionTemp = Quiz[(newQindex)];
       RaiseNewQuestionEvent(QuestionTemp);
       AvailableQuestions.RemoveAt(newQindex);
    }

    void LoadQuestions(string path)
    {
    }
   
    int SelectRandomQuestionIndex()
    {
    }

    void RaiseNewQuestionEvent(Question question)
    {
       EventHandler<QuestionEventArgs> handler = NewQuestion;
       if (handler != null) handler(this,  question);
    }
}