[CSC 204] Re: CSC 204 Assignment 1

[Andrew J. Pounds]

> Your directions for assignment one are very vague and I cant quite 
> understand exactly what the program is suppose to accomplish.  It 
> states that the program allows the user to enter two data points, but 
> continues by implying that the y value for one of the data points that 
> we supposably entered will be used to calculate the x value.  I looked 
> at the API for line.class but it was not specific enough for me to 
> find out what is actually being calculated by the program and what is 
> know. Does the forecastx, forecasty, getslope, and getyint simply 
> return the value?  Do we simply use setslope and setyint to contain 
> the values shown on your sample run or is there some kind of 
> calculations going on in that method?  If there was some way for me to 
> just view the line.class file as it was written as line.java file I 
> could better understand how to achieve your desired output, but the 
> .class file displays some abstract code that I do not understand.  
> Thank You.
>
>

Did you look at the sample output on the web page.   By calling the 
class constructor with four data values ([x1,y1], [x2,y2]), you uniquely 
define a line.  As the API states, if you provide forecastY with an 
argument that is an "x" value on the line, it will return the "y" 
value.  Likewise, if you give forecastX a "y" value argument, it will 
return the "x" value.   Similarly, once you call the constructor, you 
can also return the value of the slope and Y-intercept using the 
appropriate calls to the line.class.  All I am doing in the line class 
is playing around with the equation

y = mx + b

I just hid all of the math from you because the point at this stage of 
the game is for you to become familiar with objects and using them.    I 
also included some "extra" pieces in the API that you don't even need.  
There are two additional constructors and the methods setSlope and 
setYInt will allow you to set the values of those entities (which 
together also uniquely define a line).  Please understand, a major point 
of this lesson is for you NOT to have the line.java file.    If you need 
help using the line.class, please don't hesitate to contact me or even 
send me snippets of code.

Don't fret -- math -- and lots of LOGIC loom on the horizon...


-- 
Andrew J. Pounds, Ph.D.  (pounds at theochem.mercer.edu)
Associate Professor of Chemistry and Computer Science
Mercer University,  Macon, GA 31207   (478) 301-5627

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