What is the coolest thing you can do in 10 lines of simple code Help me inspire beginners

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I m looking for the coolest thing you can do in a few lines of simple code   I m sure you can write a Mandelbrot set in Haskell in 15 lines but it s difficult to follow    My goal is to inspire students that programming is cool    We know that programming is cool because you can create anything you imagine - it s the ultimate creative outlet   I want to inspire these beginners and get them over as many early-learning humps as I can   Now  my reasons are selfish   I m teaching an Intro to Computing course to a group of 60 half-engineering  half business majors  all freshmen   They are the students who came from underprivileged High schools   From my past experience  the group is generally split as follows  a few rock-stars  some who try very hard and kind of get it  the few who try very hard and barely get it  and the few who don t care   I want to reach as many of these groups as effectively as I can  Here s an example of how I d use a computer program to teach      Here s an example of what I m looking   for   a 1-line VBS script to get your   computer to talk to you   CreateObject  sapi spvoice   Speak InputBox  Enter your text   Talk it         I could use this to demonstrate order   of operations   I d show the code  let   them play with it  then explain that   There s a lot going on in that line    but the computer can make sense of it    because it knows the rules   Then I d   show them something like this   4 5 5    10   9  25    75        And you can see that first I need to   do is  5 5    Then I can multiply for   4   And now I ve created the Object   Dividing by 10 is the same as calling   Speak - I can t Speak before I have an   object  and I can t divide before I   have 100   Then on the other side I   first create an InputBox with some   instructions for how to display it     When I hit enter on the input box it   evaluates or  returns  whatever I   entered    Hint   oooooo  makes a   funny sound   So when I say Speak  the   right side is what to Speak   And I   get that from the InputBox       So when you do several things on a   line  like   x   14   y        You need to be aware of the order of   things   First we add 14 and y   Then   we put the result  what it evaluates   to  or returns  into x    That s my goal  to have a bunch of these cool examples to demonstrate and teach the class while they have fun   I tried this example on my roommate and while I may not use this as the first lesson  she liked it and learned something   Some cool mathematica programs that make beautiful graphs or shapes that are easy to understand would be good ideas and I m going to look into those   Here are some complicated actionscript examples but that s a bit too advanced and I can t teach flash   What other ideas do you have

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I m sure it d turn into more than 10 lines of code  but have you considered a form based app where pressing the buttons does things like changing the colour of the background or changes the size of the text  This would show them how interactive programs work  It would also show them that they  as programmer  are in complete control of what the computer  program  does   Hopefully it would lead them to make suggestions for other things they could change and then onto other things they might want to do

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import sys for y in range 80       for x in range 80           c   complex x-40 0 y-40 0    20 0         z   0 0         for i in range 100               z   z z c         sys stdout write     if abs z   lt  2 0 else          sys stdout write   n

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I think it s tough to be a computer educator these days  I am  We face an increasingly steep uphill battle  Our students are incredibly sophisticated users and it takes a lot to impress them  They have so many tools accessible to them that do amazing things   A simple calculator in 10 lines of code  Why  I ve got a TI-86 for that   A script that applies special effects to an image  That s what Photoshop is for  And Photoshop blows away anything you can do in 10 lines   How about ripping a CD and converting the file to MP3  Uhh  I already have 50 000 songs I got from BitTorrent  They re already in MP3 format  I play them on my iPhone  Who buys CDs anyway   To introduce savvy users to programming  you re going to have to find something that s   a  applicable to something they find interesting and cool  and b  does something they can t already do   Assume your students already have access to the most expensive software  Many of them do have the full version of Adobe CS5 5  retail price   2 600  actual price  free  and can easily get any application that would normally break your department s budget   But the vast majority of them have no idea how any of this  computer stuff  actually works   They are an incredibly creative bunch  they like to create things  They just want to be able to do or make something that their friends can t  They want something to brag about   Here are some things that I ve found to resonate with my students    HTML and CSS  From those they learn how MySpace themes work and can customize them  Mashups  They ve all seen them  but don t know how to create them  Check out Yahoo  Pipes  There are lots of teachable moments  such as RSS  XML  text filtering  mapping  and visualization  The completed mashup widgets can be embedded in web pages  Artwork  Look at Context-Free Art  Recursion and randomization are key to making beautiful pictures  Storytelling  With an easy-to-use 3D programming environment like Alice  it s easy to create high-quality  engaging stories using nothing more than drag-and-drop    None of these involve any programming in the traditional sense  But they do leverage powerful libraries  I think of them as a different kind of programming

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Back in computer class in high school  myself and a couple of friends taught the class how to program with Delphi   The class was mostly focused on programming with Pascal  so Delphi was a good next step   We demonstrated the event driven nature of Delphi and its RAD capabilities   At the end of the lesson we showed the class a sample application and asked them to reproduce it   The application asked  Are you drunk   with two buttons Yes and No      I think you know what is coming next   the No button changed locations on mouse over and was almost impossible to click   The students and teacher got a good kick out of it   The program only required a few lines of user-written code with a simple equation to calculate where to move the button   I don t think any of the other students figured it out  but a few were close

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Microsoft has Small Basic  an IDE for  kids    pic   Flickr GetRandomPicture  beach   Desktop SetWallpaper pic    It is specifically designed to show how cool programming is

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wxPython First Steps import wx app   wx App   wx Frame None  -1   simple py   Show   app MainLoop    simple py frame http   zetcode com wxpython images simple jpg

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It has been fun reading the answers to this question   Once you ve achieved the  wow  factor from the students  illustrate the daisy-chaining affect of the results of one becoming the input of another   Learning how input and output works will illustrate the idea of building blocks and how software grows from lots of little things solving specific problems to larger applications solving bigger problems   If a few 10 line programs can be cool  how cool would it be to then put a bunch of them together   That is non-linear cool

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When I first figured out the bash forkbomb  I thought it was really sweet   So simple  yet neat in what it can do            amp

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You could have your students go to the codeplex IronPython silverlight sample site which includes a  lt  10 line demonstration of altering a canvas and interacting with the mouse   You can find the silverlight example here  Just seeing code written in a web browser and then executing an altering a small WPF might be intoxicating for some

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So one day  I decided that I d had enough  I would learn piano  Seeing people like Elton John command such mastery of the keyboard assured me that this was what I wanted to do   Actually learning piano was a huge letdown  Even after completing eight grades of piano lessons  I was still not impressed with how my mental image of playing piano was so different from my original vision of enjoying the activity   However  what I thoroughly enjoyed was my mere three grades of rudiments of music theory  I learned about the construction of music  I was finally able to step from the world of performing written music to writing my own music  Subsequently  I was able to start playing what I wanted to play     Don t try to dazzle new programmers  especially young programmers  The whole notion of  less than ten lines of simple code  seems to elicit a mood of  Show me something clever    You can show a new programmer something clever  You can then teach that same programmer how to replicate this  performance   But this is not what gets them hooked on programming  Teach them the rudiments  and let them synthesize their own clever ten lines of code   I would show a new programmer the following Python code   input   open  input txt    r   output   open  output txt    w    for line in input      edited line   line     edited line   edited line replace  EDTA    ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid       edited line   edited line replace  ATP    adenosine triphosphate       output write edited line    I realize that I don t need to assign line to edited line  However  that s just to keep things clear  and to show that I m not editing the original document   In less than ten lines  I ve verbosified a document  Of course  also be sure to show the new programmer all the string methods that are available  More importantly  I ve showed three fundamentally interesting things I can do  variable assignment  a loop  file IO  and use of the standard library   I think you ll agree that this code doesn t dazzle  In fact  it s a little boring  No - actually  it s very boring  But show that code to a new programmer and see if that programmer can t repurpose every part of that script to something much more interesting within the week  if not the day  Sure  it ll be distasteful to you  maybe using this script to make a simple HTML parser   but everything else just takes time and experience

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hmm  I remember making snowflakes and fire in QBasic when a friend came by and showed me how to do a rotating 3D cube and totally blew my mind   And then I modified my fire onto the cube and it was good times   Have to see if I can find those old scripts somewhere  they weren t very lengthy

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Inspired by Robin Day and John Topley s answers  get them to paste the following into the address bar oftheir browser   javascript var name prompt  What is your name        var msg  Hello   name   lt br gt   newwindow window open   newdocument newwindow document for  var i 0 i lt 100 i    newdocument write msg   newdocument close     Or more readably   var name prompt  What is your name         var msg  Hello   name   lt br gt    newwindow window open    newdocument newwindow document  for  var i 0 i lt 100 i          newdocument write msg     newdocument close

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Most of these answers use an API of some kind  which sort of breaks the 10 lines of code requirement   Each API call can be hundred of lines of code   The original question says to use  Simple Code    This to me means no API calls   What kind of answers can we come up with that just uses this definition of  simple code

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My first program is somewhat similar to one already mentioned here  but my is one line shorter and much more polite   10 PRINT  What is your name   20 INPUT A  30 PRINT  Thanks

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10 Print  Mohan  20 Goto 10

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A bit off topic but you can check out this tweet coding which used as3 code that was less than 140 characters   http   gskinner com playpen tweetcoding 0

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Many people find gambling exciting and motivating   You could build a blackjack dealer class yourself  exposing an interface   Then  have the kids build a blackjack player class   You can build a graph for each student s solution showing money versus time to motivate the task   The beauty of this system is that you can produce incremental solutions over weeks   The naive solution is to always hit below a certain level   That s maybe 5 lines of code   A better solution is to look at what the dealer has exposed and adjust your hitting for that   An even better solution takes into account the actual cards you have-- not just the sum of their values   The ultimate solution is probably keeping track of the dealt cards over many hands    The dealer object could make a DealerIsShuffling int numberofdecks  call on the player object telling the player how many decks there are    Another direction this could go is to make the game competitive-- instead of winning money against a dealer  you play against other people s solutions   Of course  you have to rotate who starts hitting first to make things fair

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In WPF  you can write a fully functional Thumbnail View in a few XAML lines    lt ListBox ItemsSource  Binding MyItems           ScrollViewer HorizontalScrollBarVisibility  Hidden  gt       lt ListBox ItemTemplate gt           lt DataTemplate gt               lt Image Source  Binding FullPath  Width  50    gt           lt  DataTemplate gt       lt  ListBox ItemTemplate gt       lt ListBox ItemsPanel gt           lt ItemsPanelTemplate gt  lt WrapPanel   gt  lt  ItemsPanelTemplate gt       lt  ListBox ItemsPanel gt   lt  ListBox gt    This is  assuming you have a MyItems collection of items that contain a FullPath property that points to image files   The magic comes from the ItemTemplate that transforms each list box item into an image  and the ItemsPanelTemplate that changes the default vertical stack panel to a wrap panel

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I remember finding simple loops amazing  Each time I learn a new language I usually throw something like this together    lt  php  numberOfBottles   99  print   lt h1 gt  numberOfBottles Bottles of Beer on the Wall lt  h1 gt     print   numberOfBottles bottles of beer on the wall  lt br   gt     print   numberOfBottles bottles of beer  lt br   gt     print  Take one down  pass it around  lt br   gt     for  numberOfBottles--   numberOfBottles gt 1   numberOfBottles--        print   numberOfBottles bottles of beer on the wall  lt br   gt         print   lt br   gt         print   numberOfBottles  bottles of beer on the wall  lt br   gt         print   numberOfBottles  bottles of beer  lt br   gt         print  Take one down  pass it around  lt br   gt       print  One last bottle of beer on the wall       gt    Maybe some variations with while or foreach loops would be easy too

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I was blown away by some of the stuff that was shown in the talk Easy AI with Python  video and PDF    For example  teaching a computer how to play Mastermind  solve eight queens  alphametics  those puzzles which are like  9567   1085    10652  and infer relationships in data   All in the order of 10 lines  possibly with 20 or 30 lines of  behind the scenes  code

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I think some cool expiriments in Python with NodeBox would be a cool start  It has functions to draw things from squares to complex paths  It can even take in images from the Mac iSight  Webcam and manipulate it by scaling  rotating and applying filters   Sadly  it s only for Mac OS X  so I don t think it would be of much use to teach it  but as an example  if you have a Mac yourself  for what s possible with a little bit of code  it would be pretty nifty

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Recursion can also be used to solve a maze  Just like the Sierpinski triangle and other art  for me this is much more fun than solving some mathematical problem

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Take a look at these projects    Hackety Hack  specifically aimed at making coding accessible and attractive for non-programmers     Shoes  fun and minimalistic approach to desktop applications Processing  environment and  java-like  language for programming images  animation and more

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When I was a little kid  I had a keen interest in computers  MSX back then   and consequently programming  all there was  was a variant of Basic   I lost that after I grew up  but I got back to it when I learned that Counter-Strike was just a mod made by some fans by modifying Half-Life code  That made me really interested in programming all over again   It s not 10 lines of code  but if you show people the source code for some game  and then modify that and make it do something different  and demonstrate it to them live  it s reaaaaally gonna blow them away  Wow  this actually is not dark magic  You can do it   Now a days  there are quite a few games you can do this with  I think the source code for all the Quake series  atleast I through III  is released  I know for a fact that you can create mods for Half-Life and Half-Life2  I m sure other games like Unreal and FarCry also offer a similar ability   Some simple things that could spark grate motivation    Make a weapon super powerful  e g   infinite ammo  higher damage  auto-aim    etc  Add an Anime-style movement  flying  dashing really fast  etc     The modification itself shouldn t take too many lines of code  but the fact that it works is just amazing

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Here is something fun using javascript  function checkLove love        if  love          alert  He he he  cool         else               if love    undefined  alert  Sorry  you must love me             checkLove confirm  Do you love me              checkLove      It s kindof only 10 lines  You can either include it it a webpage or just copy paste the below code in your browser s url bar and hit enter  javascript function checkLove love  if  love alert  He he he  cool    else if love    undefined  alert  Sorry  you must love me    checkLove confirm  Do you love me       checkLove      Fun  right

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It s interesting that you mention the Mandelbrot set  as creating fractals with GW-BASIC is what sparked my love of programming back in high school  around 1993   Before we started learning about fractals  we wrote boring standard deviation applications and I still planned to go into journalism   But once I saw that long  difficult-to-write BASIC program generate  fractal terrain   I was hooked and I never looked back  It changed the way I thought about math  science  computers  and the way I learn   I hope you find the program that has the same affect on your students

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Squeak is a good tool for inspire  E g  http   squeakland jp school drive a car html Drivecar12 html

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This is a Python telnet server that will ask for the users name and say hello to them   This looks cool because you are communicating with your program from a different computer over the network   from socket import   s socket AF INET  SOCK STREAM  s bind      3333   s listen 5  while 1      c  a    s accept      c send  What is your name        name   c recv 100     c send  Hello   name     c close

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I remember when I first started coding loops always impressed me  You write 5 - 10 lines of code  or less  and hundreds  or however many you specify  lines print out   I learned first in PHP and Java    for  int i   0  i  lt  200  i          System out println  i

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Private Declare Function Beep Lib  kernel32   ByVal dwFreq As Long  ByVal dwDuration As Long  As Long Private Declare Sub Sleep Lib  kernel32   ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long  Public Sub JohnDenverAnniesSong    Const E4    329 6276  Dim Note amp   Frequencies   Durations   Frequencies    iiihfihfffhidadddfhihfffhihiiihfihffihfdadddfhihffhiki   Durations    aabbbfjaabbbbnaabbbfjaabcapaabbbfjaabbbbnaabbbfjaabcap   For Note   1 To Len Frequencies   Beep CLng E4   2     AscW Mid  Frequencies  Note  1   - 96    12    CLng  Asc Mid  Durations  Note  1   - 96    200 - 10   Sleep 10  DoEvents  Next  End Sub   Dump in Excel to run D

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A basic grep application in Ruby Python Perl

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PHP - the Sierpinski gasket a k a the Triforce OK  it s 15 lines of code but the result is awesome  That s the kind of stuff that made me freak out when I was a child  This is from the PHP manual   x   200   y   200    gd   imagecreatetruecolor  x   y      corners 0    array  x    gt  100   y    gt   10    corners 1    array  x    gt    0   y    gt  190    corners 2    array  x    gt  200   y    gt  190     red   imagecolorallocate  gd  255  0  0     for   i   0   i  lt  100000   i        imagesetpixel  gd  round  x  round  y    red      a   rand 0  2      x     x    corners  a   x      2     y     y    corners  a   y      2      header  Content-Type  image png    imagepng  gd

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Building on top of the SAPI example you provided  I use this to read files out loud to myself  just drag and drop a text file onto it s icon or run it from the command line   speakfile vbs   strFileName   Wscript Arguments 0  Set objFSO   CreateObject  Scripting FileSystemObject   Set objFile   objFSO OpenTextFile strFileName  1  strText   objFile ReadAll Set objVoice   CreateObject  SAPI SpVoice   objVoice Speak strText

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I tend to think that people are impressed with stuff that they can relate to or is relevant to their lives  I d try and base my 10 lines of code around something that they know and understand  Take  for example  Twitter and its API  Why not use this API to build something that s cool  The following 10 lines of code will return the  public timeline  from Twitter and display it in a console application     using  var xmlr   XmlReader Create  http   twitter com statuses public timeline rss                  SyndicationFeed              Load xmlr               GetRss20Formatter                Feed              Items                      ToList                ForEach  x   gt  Console WriteLine x Title Text            My code sample might not be the best for your students  It s written in C  and uses  NET 3 5  So if you re going to teach them PHP  Java  or C   this won t be useful  However  my point is that by associating your 10 lines of code with something  cool  interesting  and relevant to the students your sample also becomes cool  interesting  and relevant   Good luck    Yes  I know that I ve missed out a few lines of using statements and the Main method  but I m guessing that the 10 lines didn t need to be literally 10 lines

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The Mandelbrot Set can be presented in a way that isn t terribly complex  for example in Java below   public class MiniMandelbrot       public static void main String   args            int   rgbArray   new int 256   256           for  int y 0  y lt 256  y                  for  int x 0  x lt 256  x                      double cReal x 64 0-2 0  cImaginary y 64 0-2 0                  double zReal 0 0  zImaginary 0 0  zRealSquared 0 0  zImaginarySquared 0 0                  int i                  for  i   0   i  lt  63   amp  amp   zRealSquared   zImaginarySquared  lt  4 0   i                          zImaginary    zReal   zImaginary     zReal   zImaginary    cImaginary                      zReal   zRealSquared - zImaginarySquared - cReal                      zImaginarySquared   zImaginary   zImaginary                      zRealSquared   zReal   zReal                                    rgbArray x y 256    i   0x040404                                  java awt image BufferedImage bufferedImage   new java awt image BufferedImage 256  256  1           bufferedImage setRGB 0  0  256  256  rgbArray  0  256           javax swing JOptionPane showMessageDialog null  new javax swing ImageIcon bufferedImage    The Mandelbrot Set   -1

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At http   www youtube com watch v a9xAKttWgP4 you can watch Conway s Game Of Life programmed  and simultaneously verbally commented  in about 5 lines of APL  A Programming Language     It s fun to watch and can inspire students that programming is cool  and math  and mathematical  concise programming languages     BTW  Uncle Bob Martin mentioned this youtube video on a hanselminutes podcast

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If you can afford the hardware  using an Arduino board   processing will produce some pretty cool things  though it may be a little advanced for people that may not be interested at all in programming

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from Andrew Cooke s Malbolge  Hello World  let them try this in Malbolge      lt   9 7 lt 5YXz7wT 3  O o K  H   D  z b    Lx8  Xmrkpohm-kNi gsedcba      ZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA   gt   lt   9876543s O lt oLm   that s  Hello World  in the most difficult programming language in the whole world that took two years to find     They can go to Lou Scheffer s Malbolge page after     of course you can go the No  1       99 Bottles of Beer Program in the World by Hisashi Iizawa  it s a ONE LINER   and here s a pdf by Masahiko Sakai on Malbolge

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Try having your students program a Magic 8ball  A basic 8ball answering  yes  or  no  could probably be programmed in less than 10 lines of code  and it can be expanded incrementally in any number of ways    First  make it simple  input something like  s  for shake into a CLI  8ball answers  yes  or  no  Next  input a question  display the question along with the answer Then expand the possible answers     Loads of options  the students who are quick to catch on can have some fun   Look  the computer says dirty words      while you help the others Implement a timer  so you can t ask the same question again right away  in case you don t like the answer Group possible answers into variants of  yes    no  and  hazy  or something  first RNG decides type of answer  second RNG decides the specific answer Reconfigure the timer  you can ask again right away if the answer is hazy Make a frame of   s around the text And so on       A magic 8ball is something most people can relate to  and it s an introduction to basic strings  floats ints  IO  CLI  boolean and RNG s  using only the simplest tools  And it s simple   somewhat  fun  and can easily be expanded  Depending on you re approach  you could make the programming object-oriented at once  with class 8ball    class YesAnswer   and whatnot   Good luck  -

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How about Processing for JavaScript  I don t know Processing  but the code always seems rather small for what it can do  it s very visual  and you can run it in a browser  http   processingjs org exhibition

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This is by far the coolest thing I ve seen    and when broken down  it s actually pretty simple   http   blogs msdn com lukeh archive 2007 04 03 a-ray-tracer-in-c-3-0 aspx

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If you re teaching engineers  this bit of Prolog might get their attention   d x x 1   d C x 0  -number C   d C x x C  -number C   d -U  X  -DU   - d U  X  DU   d  U   V  x  RU   RV   -d U x RU   d V x RV   d  U - V  x  RU - RV   -d U x RU   d V x RV   d U   V x  U   DV   V   DU  - d U x DU   d V x DV   d U N  x  N U  N-1  DU   - integer N   d U  x  DU     Just write down the rules  and you have a program that can do all of first semester calculus  in 8 lines of code

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When I was a kid this was the coolest thing ever   10 PRINT  BEDWYR   20 GOTO 10   I guess it won t cut it much these days

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Enter this code in your address bar  in your browser  and press enter  Then you can edit all the content of the webpage   javascript document body contentEditable  true   document designMode  on   void 0   That is the coolest  one-liner  I know

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This C-code is maybe be obfuscated  but I found it very powerful   include  lt unistd h gt  float o 0 075 h 1 5 T r O l I int   L 80 s 3200 main   for  s L    h- o T  -2  s 4 - r O O  lt  l I I        L amp  amp write 1  --s L   lt L --   6 6 7   World   n  1  amp  amp  O I l   r 0 T  o  2  O I 2 O h I l T-r     And here is the result    In only 3 lines    A kind of fractal Hello World     WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWWWWooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWWWooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWoooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllld  ddllllrrrrrrooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWoooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllldd oWW  dllllllrrrrroooooooooooooo WWWWWWWoooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllldddd orro o dllllllrrrrrrooooooooooo WWWWWWooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllllldddd WorddddoW ddllllllrrrrrrooooooooo WWWWWoooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllllddd   o       dWW ddddllllrrrrrrrooooooo WWWWooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllllldd    WWWoo      WloW   ddddllrrrrrrrrooooo WWWWoorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllddddWldolrrlo Wl     r dlooWWWoW dllrrrrrrroooo WWWoorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllddddddd  Wdo  l                rdo l r dlrrrrrrrrooo WWoorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllddddddddd    oolWW                       lW ddlrrrrrrrroo WWorrrrrrrrrrrrllld     dddd    WWrd                          rlW ddllrrrrrrrro Worrrrrrrllllllddd oooWWWoloWWWWoodr                           drrWdlllrrrrrrrr Worrrlllllllldddd WolWrr  dWWWlrrldr                            ro dlllrrrrrrrr Wrrllllllllddddd WWolWr        oWoo                              r dllllrrrrrrr Wlllllllldddd  odrrdW            o                              lWddllllrrrrrrr Wlddddd     WWordlWrd                                          oW ddllllrrrrrrr olddddd     WWordlWrd                                          oW ddllllrrrrrrr Wlllllllldddd  odrrdW            o                              lWddllllrrrrrrr Wrrllllllllddddd WWolWr        oWoo                              r dllllrrrrrrr Worrrlllllllldddd WolWrr  dWWWlrrldr                            ro dlllrrrrrrrr Worrrrrrrllllllddd oooWWWoloWWWWoodr                           droWdlllrrrrrrrr WWorrrrrrrrrrrrllld     dddd    WWrd                          rlW ddllrrrrrrrro WWoorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllddddddddd    oolWW                       lW ddlrrrrrrrroo WWWoorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllddddddd  Wdo  l                rdo l r dlrrrrrrrrooo WWWWoorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllddddWldolrrlo Wl     r dlooWWWoW dllrrrrrrroooo WWWWooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllllldd    WWWoo      WloW   ddddllrrrrrrrrooooo WWWWWoooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllllddd   o      WdWW ddddllllrrrrrrrooooooo WWWWWWooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllllldddd WorddddoW ddllllllrrrrrrooooooooo WWWWWWWoooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrlllllllldddd orro o dllllllrrrrrrooooooooooo WWWWWWWWoooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllllldd oWW  dllllllrrrrroooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrllllld  ddllllrrrrrrooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWoooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWWWooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWWWWooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

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I think a good place for a student to get started could be Greasemonkey   There are thousands of example scripts on userscripts org  very good reading material  some of which are very small   Greasemonkey scripts affect web-pages  which the students will already be familiar with using  if not manipulating   Greasemonkey itself offers a very easy way to edit and enable disable scripts while testing   As an example  here is the  Google Two Columns  script   result2     lt table width  100   align  center  cellpadding  10  style  font-size 12px  gt    gEntry   document evaluate    li  class  g       div  class  g       li  class  g w0       li  class  g s w0    document null XPathResult UNORDERED NODE SNAPSHOT TYPE null   for  var i   0  i  lt  gEntry snapshotLength  i        if  i  0    var sDiv   gEntry snapshotItem i  parentNode parentNode      if i 2    0    result2      lt tr gt  lt td width  50   valign  top  gt   gEntry snapshotItem i  innerHTML   lt  td gt        if i 2    1    result2      lt td width  50   valign  top  gt   gEntry snapshotItem i  innerHTML   lt  td gt  lt  tr gt        sDiv innerHTML   result2   lt  table gt     if  document getElementById  mbEnd       null    document getElementById  mbEnd   style display    none

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How about showing that you can take any web browser and enter JavaScript into the address bar and get code to execute   EDIT  Go to a page with lots of images and try this in the address bar   javascript R 0  x1  1  y1  05  x2  25  y2  24  x3 1 6  y3  24  x4 300  y4 200  x5 300  y5 200  DI document images  DIL DI length  function A   for i 0  i lt DIL  i    DIS DI  i   style  DIS position  absolute   DIS left Math sin R x1 i x2 x3  x4 x5  DIS top Math cos R y1 i y2 y3  y4 y5 R    setInterval  A    5   void 0

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This is a very rudimentary text-based c  program that simulates the spinning action of a slot machine  It doesn t include different odds of winning or cash payouts  but that could be a nice exercise for the students   Sorry that it is more than 10 lines   string   symbols   new                         The symbols on the reel Random rand   new Random     do       string a    b    c          for  int i   0  i  lt  20  i                   Thread Sleep  50   25   i       slow down more the longer the loop runs          if  i  lt  10               a   symbols rand Next  0  symbols Length              if  i  lt  15               b   symbols rand Next  0  symbols Length              c   symbols rand Next  0  symbols Length              Console Clear            Console WriteLine   Spin      a   b   c               if  a    b  amp  amp  b    c           Console WriteLine   You win  Press enter to play again or type   exit   to exit         else         Console WriteLine   You lose  Press enter to play again or type   exit   to exit       while  Console ReadLine       exit

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I ve always liked the Tower of Hanoi  In Scheme   define  hanoi x from to spare     if    x 1       begin        display  move    display from  display   to    display to  display   n       begin      hanoi  - x 1  from spare to       hanoi 1 from to spare       hanoi  - x 1  spare to from       Example output  gosh gt   hanoi 3  start  dest  spare  move start to dest move start to spare move dest to spare move start to dest move spare to start move spare to dest move start to dest   lt undef gt    Also in Python  though this can t do 1000 discs like the Scheme version can   def hanoi x  source  dest  spare     if x    1      print   s to  s     source  dest    else      hanoi x - 1  source  spare  dest      hanoi 1  source  dest  spare      hanoi x - 1  spare  dest  source

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Fibonacci numbers is a cool example to learn recursivity  It shows that recursivity can be simple to write and can be costly to execute  The negative entries case can be introduced later   int fiboNumber int index      if  index  lt   1          return index        return fiboNumber index - 1    fiboNumber index - 2

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Like most of the other commenters  I started out writing code to solve math problems  or to create graphics for really terrible games that I would design -- things like Indiana Jones versus Zombies    What really started me  on both math and programming  was going from text based  choose your own adventure style games   to more graphics-based games   I started out coloring graph paper and plotting pixels  until I got into geometry   and discovered how to use equations to plot curves and lines  boxes  etc   My point is  I could have really gotten into something like processing   http   processing org    where a typical program looks something like this   void setup        size 200  200      noStroke      rectMode CENTER      void draw           background 51      fill 255  204     rect mouseX  height 2  mouseY 2 10  mouseY 2 10     fill 255  204     int inverseX   width-mouseX    int inverseY   height-mouseY    rect inverseX  height 2   inverseY 2  10   inverseY 2  10       To me  this is the  Logo  of the future   There are easy  hello world  examples that can quickly get someone drawing and changing code and seeing how things break and what weird  accidents  can be created   all the way to more advanced interaction and fractal creation

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I got a great response from my kids with a quick VB script to manipulate a Microsoft Agent character  For those that aren t familiar with MS Agent  it s a series of animated onscreen characters that can be manipulated via a COM interface  You can download the code and characters at the Microsoft Agent download page   The folllowing few lines will make the Merlin character appear on screen  fly around  knock on the screen to get your attention  and say hello   agentName    Merlin  agentPath    c  windows msagent chars    amp  agentName  amp    acs  Set agent   CreateObject  Agent Control 2    agent Connected   TRUE agent Characters Load agentName  agentPath Set character   agent Characters Character agentName   character Show  character MoveTo 500  400 character Play  GetAttention  character Speak  Hello  how are you   Wscript Sleep 15000 character Stop character Play  Hide    There are a great many other commands you can use  Check http   www microsoft com technet scriptcenter funzone agent mspx for more information   EDIT 2011-09-02 I recently discovered that Microsoft Agent is not natively installed on Windows 7  However it is offered as a separate download here  I have not tested this so cannot verify whether it operates

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I think this question is really good idea  I had a lot of sucky teachers  and the best one where obviously the guys with the will to show off a little bit   There are plenty of code you can show them  The first that comes to my mind is Ed Felten s TinyP2P source code      import sys  os  SimpleXMLRPCServer  xmlrpclib  re  hmac    C  2004  E W  Felten    ar pw res    sys argv lambda u hmac new sys argv 1  u  hexdigest   re search     pxy xs    xmlrpclib ServerProxy SimpleXMLRPCServer SimpleXMLRPCServer     def ls p     return filter lambda n  p     or res p n  os listdir os getcwd        if ar 2    client     license  http   creativecommons org licenses by-nc-sa 2 0      myU prs srv     http     ar 3      ar 4   ar 5   lambda x x serve forever         def pr x      return    y in prs  or prs append y  for y in x  or 1  and prs      def c n   return   lambda f   f read    f close     file n    0       f lambda p n a  p  pw myU  and   n  0 and pr a  or  n  1 and  ls a   or c a        def aug u   return   u  myU  and pr    or pr pxy u  f pw u  0 pr  myU          pr   and  aug s  for s in aug pr   0         lambda sv sv register function f  f   or srv sv   xs  ar 3  int ar 4         for url in pxy ar 3   f pw ar 3   0          for fn in filter lambda n not n in ls     pxy url  f pw url  1 ar 4    0           lambda fi fi write pxy url  f pw url  2 fn   or fi close    file fn  wc      Ok  it s 5 lines more than you  ten  limit  but still a fully functionnal Peer 2 Peer app  thansk to Python   TinyP2P can be run as a server   python tinyp2p py password server hostname portnum  otherurl    and a client   python tinyp2p py password client serverurl pattern   Then of course  story telling is very important  For such a purpose  99 bottles of beer is a really good start   You can then pick up several example of funcky code like     the famous Python one-liner    print    join map lambda x  x and   s d bottle s of beer on the wall   d bottle s of beer    nTake one down  pass it around  n   x lt 99 and   d bottles of beer on the wall  n n  x or   n   x  x gt 1 and  s  or      x  x gt 1 and  s  or       or  No bottles of beer on the wall  n nNo more bottles of beer    nGo to the store and buy some more    n99 bottles of beer    range 99 -1 -1     the cheaty Python version  cool for student cause it shows network features     import re  urllib print re sub   lt  p gt        re sub   lt br gt   lt p gt   lt br  gt    lt br  gt     n   re sub  No     nNo    urllib URLopener   open  http   www 99-bottles-of-beer net lyrics html   read   3516 16297       Eventually I ll follow previous advices and show some Javascript because it s very visual  The jQuery UI Demo web site is plenty of nice widgets demo including snippets  A calendar in few lines     lt script type  text javascript  gt        function                 datepicker   datepicker                 lt  script gt    lt div class  demo  gt    lt p gt Date   lt input id  datepicker  type  text  gt  lt  p gt    lt  div gt    Bookmarklets have a lot of sex appeal too  Readibility is quite interesting    function         readStyle  style-newspaper  readSize  size-large       readMargin  margin-wide        readability script document createElement  SCRIPT         readability script type  text javascript        readability script src  http   lab arc90 com experiments readability js readability js x    Math random         document getElementsByTagName  head   0  appendChild  readability script        readability css document createElement  LINK         readability css rel  stylesheet        readability css href  http   lab arc90 com experiments readability css readability css        readability css type  text css   readability css media  screen       document getElementsByTagName  head   0  appendChild  readability css        readability print css document createElement  LINK         readability print css rel  stylesheet   readability print css href  http   lab arc90 com experiments readability css readability-print css        readability print css media  print        readability print css type  text css       document getElementsByTagName  head   0  appendChild  readability print css

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You could make an application that picks a random number  And you have to guess it  If you are wrong it says  higher or lower  And if you guessed it  a nice message    It s cool to play for the students   Simple Python version without proper error checking   import random  while input  Want to play higher lower     lower   startswith  y        n   random randint 1  100      g   int input  Guess           while g    n          print     ser      g  gt  n and  low  or  high            g   int input  Guess           print    Correct  Congratulations      Erik suggests that the computer should guess the number  This can be done within 10 lines of code as well  though now the lack of proper error checking is even more serious  valid numbers outside the range cause an infinite loop    while input  Want to let the pc play higher lower     lower   startswith  y        n   int input  Give a number between 1 and 100          lo  hi  guess  tries   1  100  50  1      while guess    n          tries    1         lo  hi    guess   1  hi  if guess  lt  n else  lo  guess - 1          guess    lo   hi     2      print  Computer guessed number in  d tries    tries

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In this day and age  JavaScript is an excellent way to show how you can program using some really basic tools e g  notepad   jQuery effects are great starting point for anyone wanting to wow their friends   In this one  just click the white space of the page    lt html gt   lt head gt   lt script type  text javascript  src  http   ajax googleapis com ajax libs jquery 1 3 2 jquery min js  gt  lt  script gt   lt script gt    document body  click function        if      pic   is   hidden              pic   slideDown  slow        else           pic   slideUp             lt  script gt   lt  head gt   lt body gt  lt img id  pic  src  http   www smidgy com smidgy images 2007 07 26 lol cat icanhascheezburger jpg   gt   lt  body gt   lt  html gt

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This PHP code only works on a Mac through the command-line  but it s very useful when everyone wants to play Twister   lr   array  left    right     hf   array  hand    foot     colour   array  red    yellow    blue    green    while true         a    lr array rand  lr         b    hf array rand  hf         c    colour array rand  colour        system  say  a  b  c        sleep 5

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C program to compute the value of pi    include  lt stdlib h gt     include  lt stdio h gt     long a 10000 b c 2800 d e f 2801  g     int main             for  b-c             f b    a 5        for  d 0 g c 2 c- 14 printf    4d  e d a  e d a            for b c d  f b  a f b  d --g d  g-- --b d  b           Output   31415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164062862089 98628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450 28410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316 52712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936072602491412737245870066063155881 74881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609 43305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272 48912279381830119491298336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798609437027 70539217176293176752384674818467669405132000568127145263560827785771342757789609 17363717872146844090122495343014654958537105079227968925892354201995611212902196 0864034418159813629774771309960518707211349999998372978049951059731732816096318

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I wrote about this recently in an article  The Shortest  most useful program I have ever written     Summary  I wrote a 3 line VB6 app back in 1996 that I still use every single day  Once the exe is dropped in the  Send-to  folder  It lets you right click on a file in explorer and send the full path of that file to the clipboard   Public Sub Main          Clipboard SetText Command     End Sub

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With Tcl you have a simple text editor with a save button in about 12 lines of code  but no open  that would take another 8 lines   It works across all standard platforms   pack  frame  toolbar  -side top -fill x pack  button  save -text save -command save  -in  toolbar -side left pack  scrollbar  vsb -orient vertical -command  list  text yview   -side right -fill y pack  text  text -wrap word -yscrollcommand  list  vsb set   -side left -fill both -expand true proc save          set filename  tk getSaveFile      if   filename ne               set f  open  filename w          puts  f   text get 1 0 end-1c          close  f           I realize the goal was 10 lines  so if you want the to stick to 10 lines or less  a simple text editor without load or save is only two lines  That s not too shabby   pack  scrollbar  vsb -orient vertical -command  list  text yview   -side left -fill y pack  text  text -wrap word -yscrollcommand  list  vsb set   -side left -fill both -expand true   Execute either of the above blocks of code with  wish filename  on the platform of your choice  Wish comes with most  nix s and the mac but you ll have to install it manually for windows    To go a step further  that two line script can also be written in python  though it takes eight lines  still under the 10 line goal   from Tkinter import   root Tk   text   Text wrap  word   sb   Scrollbar orient  vertical   command text yview  text configure yscrollcommand sb set  sb pack side  right   fill  y   text pack side  left   fill  both   expand True  root mainloop

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I taught a class for students with learning disabilities  ages 11-12  We were using Hypercard and they discovered they could record the position of an object  image  box  etc   as they moved it and play it back  animation   Although this is not coding  they wanted to do more like  delete one of the moves without recording it all over again  I told them they would have to go to the code and change it   You could see who had a knack for computers programming when they prefered to do it with code because they had more control   Doing a complex macro in Excel and then learning what the code is doing could be a gateway to VBA   Depending on the age group or level of interest  it could be tough to jump straight into code  but it is the end that counts

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From Quake 3 I believe  a very fast 1 sqrt x     include  lt stdio h gt   include  lt stdlib h gt  int main  int argc  char const  argv          if  argc    2            printf  Need a number  n            return 0            float number   atof argv 1        long i      float x2  y      const float threehalfs   1 5F       x2   number   0 5F      y    number      i        long      amp y      evil floating point bit level hacking     i    0x5f3759df -   i  gt  gt  1       what the      y        float      amp i      y    y     threehalfs -   x2   y   y         1st iteration     printf   f n   y       return 0

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This bash code lock down your computer  It s called Fork bomb            amp        WARNING  don t run it   more info  http   en wikipedia org wiki Fork bomb

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Use games  Not coding games  but coding competitions  Think of the Google AI challenge  and dumb it down   Let me give an example  I once made a little contest with my friends  one of us set up a framework for a simulation  and the rest coded an AI ranging from the simple to the heavily analitic  and we fired a hundred runs to see which AI performed best   The framework  Basic I O  the simulation control was executed by a process that spawned one child per competing AI  and each round of the simulation wrote data to the standard input pipes  and read the outputs  This way  we could write our AIs in whatever language we wanted  just by following a very simple protocol   The rules were terribly simple  yet the thing was challenging  we had two villages  A and B  which distributed money equally among the families that lived there  A had 800 coins to give  and B had 500  Each round  all of the AIs were asked to chose a village to live in  printing  A  or  B  to stdout   and then got back the totals for each village during that period  by reading numbers from stdin   The goal was to have the most money after a hundred rounds   Some of the AIs we created had really complex mechanisms to try and guess what village to settle in -- though they weren t really good  for the winner was a strategy that simply always picked the village that gave the least money to each family last round  assuming most would move out to the other village the next time    I think this is engaging  encourages research and is a healthy way of competition  There are thousands of games that could be played  and it only requires basic programming knowledge  standard I O   for the players to interact

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I created Advanced Calculator With 4 Lines of Code

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Logo is always a terrific starting point   Brian Harvey s UCBLogo page has this short example      Here is a short but complete program in Berkeley Logo   to choices  menu   sofar     if emptyp  menu  print  sofar stop  foreach first  menu   choices butfirst  menu sentence  sofar     end       And here s how you use it  You type  choices   small medium large            vanilla  ultra chocolate  lychee  rum raisin  ginger            cone cup         and Logo replies   small vanilla cone small vanilla cup small ultra chocolate cone small ultra chocolate cup small lychee cone small lychee cup small rum raisin cone small rum raisin cup small ginger cone small ginger cup medium vanilla cone medium vanilla cup medium ultra chocolate cone medium ultra chocolate cup medium lychee cone medium lychee cup medium rum raisin cone medium rum raisin cup medium ginger cone medium ginger cup large vanilla cone large vanilla cup large ultra chocolate cone large ultra chocolate cup large lychee cone large lychee cup large rum raisin cone large rum raisin cup large ginger cone large ginger cup       The program doesn t have anything about the size of the menu built in  You can use any number of categories  and any number of possibilities in each category  Let s see you do that in four lines of Java

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First To get maximum attention at minimum time  you ll want to use a high-level language  probably you ll want to show 3D   I d go with Opengl - I d start by showing a short scene from a 3d computer game  then explaining  that this was done by dividing the big program into smaller parts  and then showing them how a little part may look like  something like lesson 05 on nehe gamedev net  or maybe even a more advanced lesson  it s quite impressive  and not too complicated   Also you may want to check Alice which contains 3d and was designed to teach

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Processing is always fun to play with and it creates things that are impressive to all types of people  For instance  a Brownian tree   int xf    int  random width   int yf    int  random height   int x    int  random width   int y    int  random height    background 0xFF   while x    xf    y    yf      set x y color 0 0 0      x   max 0  min x   -1    int  random 3   width - 1       y   max 0  min y   -1    int  random 3   height - 1

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I don t have code for this  however it could be abstracted in 10  lines or less  Make the mouse draw a box    however you move it  when you click  left  the box vanishes  when you click  right  the box changes color   Students want something practical  something they can hack and customize  something that says this  is not your typical boring class     Xen s mini-os kernel does this now  but it would require additional abstraction to fit your needs    You could also try plotting a manderbolt  julia  set while getting the paramaters of the quadratic plane from ambient noise  if the machines have a microphone and sound card     their voice generates a fractal  Again  its going to be tricky to do this in 10 lines  in the actual function they edit   but not impossible   In the real world  you are going to use existing libraries  So I think  10 lines in main    or whatever language you use  is more practical  We make what exists work for us  while writing what does not exist or does not work for us  You may as well introduce that concept at the beginning   Also  lines  int main void    unsigned int i  for  i 0  i  lt  10  i     return 0    Perhaps  10 function calls would be a more realistic goal  This is not an obfuscated code contest   Good luck

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Here is a program in the language of A-Prolog that computes the N coloring of a graph   c  denotes colors   v  denotes vertices  and  e  denotes edges    c 1  n                                              1  color X I    c I   1  - v X                 - color X I   color Y I   e X Y   c I     On a side note  the way I got my students excited last semester was to tell them a story  It went something along the lines of   Picture a triangle  It s a purely mathematical object  no real triangles exists  We can reason about them  discover their properties  and then apply those properties towards real world solutions  An algorithm is also a purely mathematical object  Programming is a form of magic however  We can take a mathematical object  describe it a language  and lo and behold it can manipulate the physical world  Programming is a unique discipline that bridges these two worlds

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I wrote this for a forum game -- writing the ROT13 algorithm in as few lines as possible  So  how about this in C   rot13 char s        int i -1      do          i            s i     s i   gt   65  amp  amp  s i   lt  90    s i   gt   97  amp  amp s  i   lt   122                  s i   lt  97    65   97       s i  -   s i   lt  97    65   97     13    26                s i         while s i   gt  0       I think the ternary operator is pretty neat  though I hear it is slower than if constructs  I have yet to time it for myself

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You can use jQuery Write Less Do More  library to achieve splendid visual effect in HTML webforms with minimal coding  Otherwise functional languages like F  too can do lots of stuff with few lines of codes   Following is solution for problem number 8 of Project euler  -  data  - string of numbers in 50   20 grid  let data   txt    Seq toList    List filter System Char IsDigit    List map System Char GetNumericValue  let rec partition 5 l       match l with      x1   x2  x3  x4  x5    as t  -   x1 x2 x3 x4 x5    partition 5 t         -      let euler 8   List map  fun x -  List fold     1 0 x   partition 5 data     List max

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One thing you might consider is something like Robocode  in which a lot of coding is abstracted away and you basically just tell a robot what to do  A simple 10-line function can make the robot do a great deal  and has a very visual and easy-to-follow result   Perhaps Robocode itself isn t suited to the task  but this kind of thing is a good way to relate written code to visual actions on the computer  plus it s fun to watch for when you need to give examples   public class MyFirstJuniorRobot extends JuniorRobot    public void run       setColors green  black  blue        Seesaw forever   while  true       ahead 100      Move ahead 100    turnGunRight 360      Spin gun around    back 100      Move back 100    turnGunRight 360      Spin gun around         public void onScannedRobot       turnGunTo scannedAngle     fire 1       public void onHitByBullet       turnAheadLeft 100  90 - hitByBulletBearing

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This is cheating  and not even remotely simple  but I once wrote a shoot em up in 20 lines of C    using the Allegro graphics library  No real criteria for what a line was  but it was a bit ago  and it was made purely for fun  It even had crude sound effects   Here s what it looked like   20 Lines http   img227 imageshack us img227 8770 20linesxx0 png  And here s the code  should compile    bool inside int x  int y  int x2  int y2    return  x gt x2 amp  amp x lt x2 20 amp  amp y gt y2 amp  amp y lt y2 10     int main       BITMAP  buffer    float px shotx shoty monstars 8  first rnd pressed points   0  maxp   0    unsigned char midi 5     0xC0 127 0x90 25 0x54   plgfx      0 0 0 10 3 10 3 5 6 5 6 10 8 12 10 10 10 5 13 5 13 10 16 10 16 0 13 0 13 2 3 2 3 0 0 0   mongfx      0 0  10 5  20 0  17 8  15 6  10 16  5 6  3 8  0 0     allegro init    set color depth 32   set gfx mode GFX AUTODETECT WINDOWED 320 240 0 0   install timer    install keyboard     install mouse    buffer   create bitmap 320 240  srand time NULL   install sound DIGI AUTODETECT  MIDI AUTODETECT     clear to color buffer makecol32 100 100 255        while   pressed   key KEY Z  amp  amp pressed  0 pressed  1 1 amp  amp    shoty key KEY Z  amp  amp shoty lt 0 amp  amp pressed  0  pressed 1 200 200  first  0 -1 shoty   200 shotx px 9 0   9999 1 1   amp  amp  1  px    key KEY LEFT  -0 1 0   key KEY RIGHT  0 1 0   amp  amp  1 int px  px lt 0 0  px gt 228 228 px     amp  amp   key KEY ESC         rectfill buffer 0 0 244 240 makecol32 0 0 0        for int i 0 i lt 8 i    if  inside shotx shoty i 32 monstars i    midi out midi 5           for  int i 0  i lt 8  monstars i     first   gt 8  monstars i   -100 0 0 02  -100  points   monstars i  gt 240 points-1 points  monstars i  monstars i  gt 240 -100 monstars i   points   inside shotx shoty i 32 monstars i   points 1 points   monstars i    inside shotx shoty i 32 monstars i   shoty -1 -100 -100 monstars i    maxp   maxp gt points maxp points  i    for  int j 1  j lt 9  j    line buffer i 32 mongfx j 2 - 2  monstars i  mongfx j 2-1  i 32 mongfx j 2  monstars i  mongfx j 2 1  makecol32 255 0 0        if  int first  2000    0  amp  amp  int rnd float rand   8    monstars int rnd     monstars int rnd    -100 -20 monstars int rnd       randomowe pojawianie potworkow     if  shoty gt 0  rectfill buffer shotx shoty- 0 1 shotx 2 shoty 2 makecol32 0 255 255       rysowanie strzalu     for  int i 1  i lt 18  i    line buffer px plgfx i 2 - 2  200-plgfx i 2-1  px plgfx i 2  200-plgfx i 2 1  makecol32 255 255 0        textprintf ex buffer font 250 10 makecol32 255 255 255  makecol32 100 100 255       i     int points  10       textprintf ex buffer font 250 20 makecol32 255 255 255  makecol32 100 100 255       i     int maxp  10       blit buffer  screen  0  0  0  0  320 240         END OF MAIN

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Choose any language  or framework  where drawing a dot  line  box or circle to the screen is trivial  Designing games is where a lot of programmers first find their passion  and graphical output is fundamental to this  Choose a language which lets them easily show off their work to friends  If they need to get their friends to install runtime frameworks and follow complicated instructions to show off  then they won t be getting the necessary kudos and comments they need  Don t underestimate the value of a peer saying  Hey  that s cool      Perhaps given these two criteria  Javascript with Processing js or Flash might be a good start point  though Flash obviously has the downside of requiring   er    Flash   Tangential thought  Flash is actually a really great way to teach OOP  since it s much easier to grasp the concepts of objects and classes when you can actually see them

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I ve found a big favorite  in GWBASIC  is   10 input  What is your name   N  20 i   int rnd   2  30 if i   0 print  Hello   N     You are a  lt fill in insult number 1 gt   40 if i   1 print  Hello   N     You are a  lt fill in insult number 2 gt     I ve found beginning students have a few conceptions that need to be fixed    Computers don t read your mind  Computers only do one thing at a time  even if they do it so fast they seem to do it all at once  Computers are just stupid machines and only do what they are told  Computers only recognize certain things and these are like building blocks  A key concept is that a variable is something that contains a value and its name is different from that value  The distinction between the time at which you edit the program and the time at which it runs    Good luck with your class  I m sure you ll do well   P S  I m sure you understand that  along with material and skill  you re also teaching an attitude  and that is just as important

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Convert an image to music in Python  From my answer to How do I loop through every 4th pixel in every 4th row  using Python       usr bin env python import easygui   http   easygui sourceforge net  import Image     http   www pythonware com products pil  import numpy     http   numpy scipy org   filename   easygui fileopenbox     pick a file im   Image open filename    make picture im show     show picture ar   numpy asarray im    get all pixels N   4 pixels   ar   N   4     every 4th pixel in every N-th row notes   pixels sum axis 2    9   24   compute notes  0  52  print  number of notes to play    notes size   Notes can correspond to different tones  I use here equal tempered scale     play the notes import audiere   http   pyaudiere org  import time  d   audiere open device     Notes in equal tempered scale  f0  a   440  2   1 12   tones    d create tone f0 a  n  for n in range -26  27     53  for y  row in enumerate notes       print N y   print original row number     for t in  tones note  for note in row           t volume   1 0   maximum volume         t play           time sleep 0 1    wait around 100 milliseconds         t stop

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When Steve Wozniak built his first Apple II he liked to show it off with a Breakout game in Apple Basic  typed in on the spot  I think it actually was around 10 lines  I wish I had it to paste in here  You could probably also do it in a system like Processing

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You could use a script written with AutoIt  which blurs the line between using a traditional application and programming   E g  a script which opens notepad and makes their own computer insult them in it and via a message box  and then leaves no trace of its actions   Run  notepad exe   WinWaitActive  Untitled - Notepad   Send  You smell of human    Sleep 10000  MsgBox 0   Humans smell bad    Yuck    WinClose  Untitled - Notepad   WinWaitActive  Notepad    Do you want to save   Send   n

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Maybe this is dumb  but I think kids would intuitively grasp it -- the cartoon that started off the whole  What   s your favorite    programmer    cartoon   at What  39 s your favorite  quot programmer quot  cartoon    E g  Jason Fox of Foxtrot writes code on the board that does a loop   Possible point of interest  programming might help you out of trouble some time

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As a supplement to whatever ideas you come up with  I say you should just show them how to do some basic math   Present it as       now you might think this is easy or   complicated    but have you ever been   stuck on your math homework     Then just pull out an example from someone s book   Most math problems can be solved in 10 lines as it will likely be a simple problem   Then show them how spending 10 minutes to figure it out might be worth the A they might get   It s a long stretch  but you might catch a few who want to spend little to no time doing homework   This mostly stems from me having wished I had thought of writing a software program back in chemistry    all those quizzes and homeworks would have been 100s     Edit  To respond to Peter s comment   Say something like what is the derivative of 3a2   So you could just show a simple function that they can call from the command line   public int SimpleDerivative int r  int exponent       r   r   exponent     exponent  - 1     return  String   0 a  1   where  0    r   1    exponent

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Something like      10 rem twelve times table  20 For x   1 to 12  30  For y   1 to 12  40     print using       x y   50  next y  60  print   70 next x  80 end

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How about a bookmarklet  It would show them how to manipulate something that they use every day  the Internet  without requiring any development tools

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When I first wrote this   10 PRINT  What is your name   20 INPUT A  30 PRINT  Hello   A  40 GOTO 30   It blew people away  The computer remembered their name   EDIT  Just to add to this  If you can convince a new programmer this is the coolest thing they can do  they will become the good programmers  These days  you can do almost anything you want with one line of code to run a library somebody else wrote  I personally get absolutely no satisfaction from doing that and see little benefit in teaching it

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Messing around with cookies   Its cookies  Kids loooovvve cookies    Find a site that relies on cookies for something  Use firefox addon to edit the cookie       Learning

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I think any sort of shell script which can do something useful is a great way to show someone the power of programming  Being able to spend 10-20 minutes on a small script that will automate another task and save you countless hours is very impressive  imo   For example  I once wrote a simple Perl script to convert mp3 files in one directory to another format and them burn them to a cd  You invoke the script with the path to a directory of MP3 s and it burns the cd  At least I was impressed at the time

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Here s my 10 line web spider   Technically it s 11 including the perl shell declaration but I hope that s forgivable   I wanted to get it to identify certain file types and support relative paths  but ran out of lines   To run   perl spider pl http   yahoo com search q test   Note that Google doesn t allow LWP Simple without a user agent so searching Google won t work   No room for that either   Anyway  where s the code      usr bin perl -w use LWP  Simple  my  queue     ARGV 0    my  visited       while  my  url   pop  queue         next if  visited  url        visited  url    1      my  html   get  url  or next      print  Spidering  url n       push  queue   html    m  http             g

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10 PRINT  HELLO  20 GOTO 10   But I was just a kid then  That s also why it was the coolest thing  I don t think you can ever get that same rush from the very first time you programmed a computer  Even if it s as simple as printing  HELLO  to the console infinitely

[language-agnostic] What is the coolest thing you can do in <10 lines of simple code? Help me inspire beginners!

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