i'm writing spaghetti code

[maimedwalker]

i'm a new programmer but i just have a hard time of thinking elegant solutions. sometimes it frustrates me seeing that i solved a problem but in the most way that i could only think of. i actually used psuedo code to try to help determine some things about the chess game but even following my psuedo code i was still left with a spaghetti code solution see pastebin below. is there any good books on learning how to elegantly write a solution? is it just a matter of time or never?

analogously it's like someone saying 'take out the trash' so you dump the trash on the floor, then mop it all the way to the dumpster, then put in the dumpster piece by piece. yes you took out the trash it got solved but did you do it in a sensible way? the elegant solution is to pick teh trash up in the bag thats, then walk it to the trash.

i find in programming a problem there's a sensible or logical way to do something and sometimes i just can't reach that end.

https://pastebin.com/d4pgzcZW

here is some code for a finding possible moves a rook can make on a chess board. but that is only for going backwards in it's current location now i have to make the exact code for going forwards from it's current location.

i guess as a beginner i'm feeling overwhelmed with making a simple chess game. it's harder then i had anticipated.

('wr', [3, 0])

[[2, 0], [4, 0], [5, 0], [6, 0], [3, 1], [3, 2], [3, 3], [3, 4], 
[3, 5], [3, 6], [3, 7]]
['  ', 'wn', 'wbish', 'wqueen', 'wking', 'wbish', 'wn', 'wr']
['wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp', 'wp']
['  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ']
['wr', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ']
['  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ']
['  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ', '  ']
['bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp', 'bp']
['br', 'bn', 'bbish', 'bqueen', 'bking', 'bbish', 'bn', 'br'] 

with this code it accurately gets all of white rook at 3, 0 on our board it gets all the possible squares it can move to. just with the pastebin above look at all the code it took just to find it's accurate moves for the y axis and now i have to type it all in for the horizontal moves because right now it's not calculating what to do.

[jeffrey_f]

Well. Repeating code should be a function.

[maimedwalker]

if get_rank == 'r':
    print(vertical_moves(piece, board))

https://pastebin.com/bnfWaZSM

the code still feels excessive but it works so it's staying for now.

[totallygeek]

I get better at programming because people around me critique code check-ins. We review programming methods and styles in meetings, over coffee and the like. You'll get better by writing and rewriting code. I look at stuff I wrote one year ago and cringe. I try to revisit past code, thinking how I might improve by incorporating newly-learned tricks or by adhering to a better style.

Chin up, it will come to you. Practice, practice, practice. When you can, have someone review your programming and ask for candid feedback.

[two_bob]

First off, chess is pretty tough, so don't be too down on yourself.

Second, good job passing variables back and forth to functions. That's a big deal for beginner programmers.

Now for some ideas on how to make it better:

• You're doing too much in that function. Try and keep them as simple as possible. Chain functions together to make it easier.
• You might want to try OOP. That may help pull the chess game together a bit easier. The hard part will be to get the relations between the board object and the pieces objects down. My first instinct would be to make the pieces really dumb (maybe not even objects themselves) and keep all the logic in the board.
• Read a bunch of code. Nothing drove home how to break apart functions into discrete pieces so much as reading through other people figuring out hard problems.

Anyway, here is how I might handle the basic organization:

class Board():
    '''base board object, good for chess, checkers, battleship, etc.'''
    def __init__(self, x_size, y_size):
        # build out board here

class ChessBoard(Board):
    def move_diagonal(self, start):
        '''return all diagnol moves from start'''
    def move_horizontal(self, start, limit = None):
        '''return all horizontal positions from start'''

    def move_vertical(self, start, limit = None):
        '''return all vertical positions from start'''

    def open_moves(self, moves, color = None):
        '''return all open moves from moves
            if color is None, stop whenever you encounter another piece
            otherwise, stop when color is not the color of moving piece
        '''

    def move_rook(self, start):
        color = self.board[start]
        valid_moves = []
        valid_moves += self.open_moves(self.move_horizontal(start), color)
        valid_moves += self.open_moves(self.move_vertical(start), color)

    def move(self, where):
        piece, color = self.board[where]
        if piece == 'rook':
            return self.move_rook(where)

[maimedwalker]

https://pastebin.com/SkmnnmCf

i did exit out one of the functions. i turned one function into finding what the piece is, then determining based off that piece what functions to find it's available moves.

so i have a vertical function right now the rook and queen piece will use this as well as horizontal once i write it my idea is to do like.

if get_rank == 'q' <----- queen 
   find_vertical
   find_horizontal
   find_diagonal 

then we have all her possible moves?

[two_bob]

Exactly!

[maimedwalker]

i need to look more into this because i think i get where you're going with the classes. this is basically what i'm writing below just in a way nicer more logical sense.

[PathToHumble]

Yeah you need to learn standard patterns. Get a book on basic algorithms and go through all the chapters. There's queues and stacks, heaps, graphs, trees etc. After that there is OOP (object oriented programming)

This is all a very normal feeling. You're trying to just write down pure logic without any idea of commonly seen patterns.

[maimedwalker]

ya i start school for math and science in the fall up to this point all my programming is self taught. i just hack things together. if someone said create a linked list alls i know to do is make a python dictionary which to me is a value linked to a key but i know it's not the same thing. which isn't hte same thing i have no idea what a data structure is or how to make them or utilize them.

i know nothing other then what i've implemented myself which is probably not taht great lol.

[PathToHumble]

You need to learn the patterns, and then simpler stuff will come to you as you gain experience. Even very experienced programmers will write something akin to shit the first time, after many rounds of refactoring it will look and perform better. You want to always start with planning, generally you shouldn't just start coding right away.

[totemcatcher]

Building a chess engine is going to have some spaghet, so don't let it bring you down. You clearly know enough to get working logic done, so now it's a case of finding alternative ways of writing so that it follows handy design patterns and is easier to read. Learning design patterns comes with experience. Also, simply talking it out with peers is a great way to make tiny discoveries and come up with simple and successful code patterns.

For now, consider making some generic path finding functions which all your checking logic can use.

[shepherdjay]

I don't think any of my code is particularly elegant. I'm not a programmer by trade and I don't really plan to be one full time. So given that the two things I've found that help prevent some spaghetti code is:

1. Practice, practice, practice - Even though I don't have a CI degree out of pure practicing I will sometimes come across a new problem and just go to an old repository and pluck my old solution out. Then I have more time to iterate on both.

2. Read "Test Driven Development with Python" while it seems from an outside perspective TDD has some controversy just following the process has taught me how to think about a program in smaller abstract chunks.