DEV Community: Lorelei

Ball Python Recommender using...Python

Lorelei — Sat, 02 Dec 2023 05:09:06 +0000

This project started as a portfolio project for Codecademy's Computer Science Career Path. The goal of this project was to "build a basic recommendation program for a topic of your choice." I chose, rather than going "basic", to built something that would return optimal recommendations and that I could actually make use of in my small business (breeding ball pythons).

Purpose and Use:

The purpose of this program is to aid ball python breeders using the MorphMarket platform in putting together the best groups for customers based on their budget, desired traits, and number of snakes in a time efficient manner. This program by default is using an example inventory file from the Crescent Serpents MorphMarket shop (it is not current, the shop is now closed).

What the Program Can Do:

-Built groups of ball pythons from the shop based on a given budget and return the top 3 groups.
-Include specific numbers of males and females in the group.
-Trait Selection Options:
---Choose traits that ALL the snakes must have.
---Choose traits that snakes must have AT LEAST one of.
---Choose traits that must be in the final package but not every snake needs to have.
---Choose traits to exclude from the package.
-If in choosing a trait the user misspells the trait name, the program will attempt to spell check and return the closest match from the traits in stock.

My ball python shop is now closed sadly, but I still greatly enjoyed building this project, and hopefully it can be of help to any other "python" lovers out there.

CPU Instruction Cycle Simulator

Lorelei — Fri, 24 Nov 2023 19:53:29 +0000

I am definitely more of a software than a hardware person, but it's always good to step out of your comfort zone.

This project was a portfolio assignment from the Computer Architecture course on Codecademy. The assignment required that I "research, design, and build a Python program that simulates the functionalities of a CPU." Which sounded quite simple, it's such a little piece of hardware, but as soon as I started really researching I discovered more of a mountain range than a mountain of information. I applaud you hardware people, I had no idea how complex the physical components of a computer were.

The assignment was very open-ended as to how and in what way the program simulated a CPU, but did come with two text files to use for testing, one containing data, and the other instructions. Using those files and my research as a guide, I decided to simulate the stages in the CPU instruction cycle:
-Fetch
-Decode
-Execute
-Memory Access
-Registry Write-Back

Was this my favorite project? No. Did it challenge me and give me a deeper understanding of the inner workings of this wonderful machine I type away at all day? Yes.

Good assignment Codecademy.

Baby Coder's First Game: Mancala

Lorelei — Tue, 23 May 2023 19:20:39 +0000

I have done the thing!

I've had the idea for this Mancala project for a while. In the process of learning my first coding language (Python) I've come across a few game tutorials that I really enjoyed working through, although they seemed monumentally complicated to me at that early stage in my learning journey. Coding the computer to make not only random game moves, but to find the best moves fascinated me, so I tucked that information away for a day when I would understand and be proficient enough with Python to implement the concept in my own work. Now at the end of Codecademy's fantastic Intro to Programming course, I finally have the skills to do just that.

Why Mancala? I've seen games like Rock, Paper, Scissors and Tic-Tac-Toe everywhere, and although I'm sure someone has already built Mancala with Python, I have not yet come across it yet. I wanted to make sure I was making something different enough from the tutorials I had already seen or worked through to ensure that I could build, from scratch, a well functioning game that had the computer making good choices for its moves _most _of the time. To give the human player a fighting chance at winning the game I implemented the 'best moves' for the computer for any available free moves and used 'random moves' otherwise (rather than have it steal all the player's stones). I plan to in the future further build upon this project to implement different levels of difficulty for the player to choose from. Mostly because I'm a perfectionist and can't leave stuff alone.

There's still a lot to learn, but this felt like a monumental success and I'm excited for the future.