Language, Language, Language

A few weeks ago our challenge had been to create a Rock Paper Scissors game using Ruby. This week we have been asked to create the game again, but this time using JavaScript, jQuery and CSS.

For the non-coders out there, think of this like writing a poem for an assignment. Then being asked to translate it into a language you only just started yesterday.

Ok, I’ll admit this isn’t a perfect metaphor because we wrote the initial poem in a language we had only been learning for two weeks, not our native language.

So the poems are relatively short, in the grand scheme of literary theory, as is our code, in the grand scheme of web applications.

How much of the language are we actually learning?

The point of a 12 week boot camp is not to learn absolutely everything you can about a specific language. As we are continuously told at Makers Academy, like any language, it is almost impossible to learn all the vocabulary of a coding language in just a few weeks.

That takes time, effort and practice.

What we do learn here, however, is the basic syntax (verbs?) of a variety of different coding languages. This means although we can’t fully speak the language, we know enough about it to be able to use the dictionary effectively.

Why rewrite the same code?

The Rock Paper Scissors game is not the first thing we have rewritten in a new coding language in the past 5 weeks. One of the best ways to start to understand a new language is to have a reference point in a language you do know (even if only barely).

There have been studies about why Dutch children speak English so well and many of these studies have suggested that it is because they watch English TV programs with Dutch subtitles.

This means they can listen to the spoken English, while constantly referring back to their native Dutch in the subtitles.

So rewriting code in a language you are more familiar with makes the new one slightly less daunting.

Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock

Anyway, for anyone that wants to procrastinate, play Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock against the computer!

Click here to play!

(Note: despite what someone thought, it is NOT rigged for the computer to always win. If you don’t seem to ever win, don’t come crying to me being a sore loser. My game is awesome. :P)

For anyone that might be interested in seeing the code behind the game, you can find it on my github:

https://github.com/camillavk/Rock-Paper-Scissors-Java

 

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