Java/Coding people, please help?

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Zippygoose

This is an excellent point. I can remember sitting in a Freshman year OO concepts class and thinking-"Man this polymorphism shit is totally useless!"

I think the difficulty lies in the fact that an application a beginner would write is almost always in and of itself simplistic-and the entire basis of OO programming is the ability to take a large and complex problem and organize it into managable and reusable code. I mean how many times were you writing out prototypes for your "hello world" program and cursing the prof for all of this pesky "busy work"? That was me every day.

I strongly agree and that is exactly what I meant to say.

[Kuriin]

Help...I'm stuck /because/ of my computeMax method. It's not generating the max of converges.

/*
* Created: *** put the date here ***
*
* Author: *** put your name here ***
*
* Program to compute Hailstone series.
*/

import java.util.Scanner;

public class Lab5
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Scanner in = new Scanner (System.in);
int length, start, max;
System.out.print("Would you like to compute a hailstorm series?");
String compute = in.nextLine();
if(compute.charAt(0) != 'Y' || compute.charAt(0) != 'y')
{
while((compute.charAt(0) == 'y' || compute.charAt(0) == 'Y'))
{

start = getStartingValue(in);
length = computeLength(start);
max = computeMax(start);
outputResults(start, length, max);
in.nextLine();
System.out.println();
System.out.println("Would you like to compute another hailstorm series?");
compute = in.nextLine();
}
}
System.out.println("Goodbye.");
System.exit(0);
}


// Given a Scanner in, this method (repeatedly, if necessary)
// prompts the user to enter a positive integer, inputs the
// integer, and if it is positive returns it. Otherwise, is
// keeps asking the user for a positve integer.
private static int getStartingValue(Scanner in)
{
System.out.print("Enter a positive integer.");
int x = in.nextInt();
if(x <= 0)
{
System.out.print("Enter a positive integer.");
x = in.nextInt();
}
return x;
}

// Do not declare the Scanner variable in this method.
// You must use the value this method receives in the
// argument (in).


// Given a positive starting value x, this method generates the
// corresponding Hailstone series and returns the length of the
// series (i.e., how many steps it takes before the series hits 1).
private static int computeLength(int x)
{
int length = 1;
if (x == 1)
{
length++;
}
else
{
while(x > 1)
{
if(x%2 == 0)
{
x = x/2;
length++;
}
else
{
x = (3 * x) + 1;
length++;
}
}
}
return length;
}

// Given a positive starting value x, this method generates the
// corresponding Hailstone series and returns the maximum value
// in the series (i.e., the largest value it generates before
// the series hits 1).
private static int computeMax(int x)
{
int length = 1;
int between;
between = x;
if(x == 1)
{
length = x;
}
else
{
while(x > 1)
{
if(x%2 == 0){
x = x/2;
length++;
}
else
{

x = (3 * x) + 1;
length++;
if(between > x)
{
between = x;
}
}
}
}
return between;
}


// Given the starting value, the length, and the max value in a
// Hailstone series, this method outputs them with appropriate
// messages.
private static void outputResults(int start, int length, int max)
{
System.out.println("The generated series for starting value " + start);
System.out.println("Series converged in " + length + " steps.");
System.out.println("Largest value generated is " + max);

}
}

[Kuriin]

Nevermind. Found it. Incorrect boolean sign.

[slitz]

btw! much easier to read if you use the code tags [ code ] and end with [ / code ] without the whitespace.

[Kuriin]

Originally Posted by slitz

btw! much easier to read if you use the code tags [ code ] and end with [ / code ] without the whitespace.

Oh okay. Sorry about that. Didn't realize there were tags for code.