In this blog we are going to be discussing an extension to the if statement called the else if statement. Now, the else if is different than the if else…Which is confusing because the names are so similar. Soon I will go through all of the differences so you can have a clear definition of all three.
In a previous blog I gave you a super crazy if statement to explain how to evaluate complex conditionals. To organize this, we used parenthesis. Let’s go over a simplified example.
In this situation, we do not have parenthesis to explain in what order these are going to be evaluated.
Short circuiting is something that will happen when your program is running and it hits a conditional. A short circuit in logic is when you know for sure that an entire complex conditional is either true or false before you evaluate the whole thing.
You honestly do not have to worry a whole lot about short circuiting when coding because this is something that happens when the software is running, not when you are coding. That being said, it is still an important concept to understand when it comes to logic. There is one specific time when this info is very useful.
This blog we are going to be discussing complex conditionals. First, you let’s do a brief review of conditionals. A conditional is something that evaluates to true or false. Inside of a conditional you can have relational operators. Let’s say we have a variable, x, which has the value 5. We can make a conditional like this:
So far in in this series we’ve discussed the very basics of logic. In the very first blog over logic, I briefly introduced a topic called logical operators but I never went into a whole lot of detail. These allow us to make more complex conditionals, and that is what this entire blog is going to be about.
The problem here is that we are calling return 0 twice. This works in this situation, but what if we wanted to continue executing the program. For example, what if we wanted to do something like this:
In this blog we are going to be creating an if statement with relational operators.
We want to create an application that gives the user one try to guess a number between 1 and 5. As we get more advanced, we can do things such as give them multiple tries and see how many times it takes them to get it right. For now, we are just getting the very basics.
I often get people asking me if they should go to school for computer science. I have a lot of good reasons why you shouldn’t which is what we will be talking about in this blog!
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1.) You Don’t Have a Passion to Code
A lot of people are asking me if they should study computer science, but they have either never coded or just dabbled in it. Then they sign up for this four year program and they find that they are miserable!
The harsh reality is that if you go into a program like computer science, there is a high probability that you are going to end up in a career coding! Not all the time, but there is a high chance. If you do, you are probably going to miserable, fat, and then die. Im two of those… but… moving on!
I think part of the reason why people are not enjoying coding, is because they are looking at it in the wrong perspective. They think that coding is the end result, like “now that I have studied computer science, I get to code!” That’s really not how it is!
Coding is a tool that is used to build solutions. If you go into computer science or programming, you should expect to be building innovative technology. often times this technology is rooted in helping others solve problems. It’s more than just coding! It’s ultimately having the opportunity to help the world!
I was really inspired to do this blog (and video) by another YouTuber, Joma Tech. He did a video titled Don’t Be a Programmer! He did a much better job at putting this into words, so check out his video first, before moving on!
This video is so inspiring! I really believe that if you are going to go into computer science, you need to think beyond just programming. If after watching this video and thinking more about it, you are still not motivated to go into computer science, then that might be a good sign that it’s not a career path for you.
2.) You are in the Work Force Already
This isn’t going to apply to everybody, but in the majority of cases, if you are already in the workforce, then going back to school is not necessary.
I feel like society puts a lot of pressure on people saying that “you need a degree in whatever you are going to do as a career.” That is just not true especially with computer science.
The main reason I can say that it is not true with computer science is because if you get a programming job or a computer science related job, you are going to have to continually learn new stuff on your own. That is part of the job description!
If you need the extra structure from college, thats okay! But in general, you need to be a self starter and be motivated to learn on your own! You need to figure out what is essential in order for you to succeed, and then go learn those things.
You might go to computer science school and learn the foundation, but then as soon as you graduate, you are going to start forgetting that stuff right away. If you are not going to continually learn, you are going to fall pretty quickly and then you will be back in the situation where you were 4 or 5 years ago when you didn’t have a computer science degree!
I know a lot of people are going to say “well employers look for people that have degrees and that’s how you get in a job” and that is sometimes the case! What I can say to that is, you need to make sure you have a good portfolio, especially if you decide not to go to college.
A portfolio is a collection of all of you work so people can understand what you are good at! If you do this, you probably want to buy your own domain and host your own website! This is where our sponsor can help!
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So if you are in the situation where you are in the work force and you want to get into coding but you are not in a programming or tech job right now, there are a ton of resource to learn online!
For example, I have a C Programming Crash Course! I also have tons of educational videos on my YouTube channel as well!
freeCodeCamp is a great way to learn Full Stack web development too! There are ton’s of resources out there! Just look around.
To conclude number two, don’t buy into the lie that you need a degree, build a portfolio, and be motivated to learn on your own with resources available online.
3.) You Don’t Have the Time
This might be hard to believe, but a 4 year program can sometimes takes 4 years! 😂That is a lot of time that you can be investing into other things such as building a start up company, spending time with family, or watching Netflix!
Life doesn’t always have to be knowledge and achievement and work. It’s a huge sacrifice to go to school not only in time, but financially too. You have to weight the opportunity cost! Is it really worth it to give that time and that money?
Hopefully if you were planning on going to college for computer science, I didn’t discourage you! That is not what I am trying to do here. All I am trying to say is that computer science is not for everyone.
What do you think? Are those three reasons accurate? What are some other reasons?
If you are studying computer science, what made you want to do that? Leave you answers in the comments below!
As for me, I ended up pursuing a Bachelors in computer science simply because I wanted to! I was working as a developer before going to school, so I didn’t see it as a huge need for a career change, but I wanted the experience of going to school and extending my knowledge!
It’s that time of year again where we cram in a bunch of books to read so that we don’t feel like failures. Ha! Just kidding… kind of. Anyway, education is very important for us computer programmers! We must always be learning and a great way to do that is to read! Today I wanted to share with you the books I am finishing up before the end of this year!
Before we get started, I wanted to talk to you about my awesome sponsor, .tech domains! It’s the thing cool kids are doing these days! If you are looking to start a website, I would consider a .tech domain. Maybe you have been in the situation before where you try multiple different domains like CalebCurry.com and CalebTheYouTuber.com and everything is already taken! It’s so frustrating!
This won’t happen with .tech domains because they are still new! All the good names are still out there! A lot of popular companies are snatching them up including Consumer Electronic Show and Intel. Make sure you go get yours!
If you are interested in registering your domain, check out www.tech.calebcurry.com to get yours today! They also have an upcoming Black Friday sale where you can get 95% off your domain and if you pre-register for the sale, you can get even more savings! Now is obviously the time!
This book has helped me so much in planning my upcoming JavaScript course! This has helped me learn and review the basics of JavaScript. The main seller of this book is that every chapter has hands on exercises! This is great for beginners who need to learn with hands on examples. It is very hands on and very practical!
This book is great for those who are intermediates at JavaScript. This talks about understanding scoping, objects, inheritance and more. I like this book a lot because it is a bit more on my level!
I am also planning a C# course! This book has helped tremendously. It covers a ton of information and is very practical! I like this book because it’s not over the top challenging, but it’s not for beginner programmers either.
This book goes great with the one above! ASP.NET Core is the C# web development framework. The Core version is the newest version which is cross platform! I think this makes ASP.NET a lot more valuable and a lot more in demand. It’s also a more lightweight version. I honestly haven’t started reading this book yet, but it looks like a really great one and I’m excited to read it!
C# and Java are basically the same! I learned C# first and Java is literally no different… ok maybe it has a few minor differences, but still! You can take C# code and then “Javafy it.” It’s a real term! Don’t look it up…. So this book is going to help me make my upcoming Java course! I’m basically taking my C# course and Javafying it with this book. I think it’s pretty cool!
I’m intending to sit down with this book and a pencil and underline things that I am not familiar with and then mark the top of the page. When I come back later, I can just flip through the book and remember the parts where I needed some further study!
I’m hoping to release a full Python course soon! I am not very familiar with Python, unlike C# and Java, so this book is going to help me study and prepare that course!
This book is basically a C++ crash course! C# and C++ have many differences, but I am planning on still using C# as a template for my C++ course. C++ is still going to have data types, control flow structures, loops, classes, methods and more.
I’m done reading this book because I just released a C Programming Crash Course! This takes all of the information from my recent C Programming course on YouTube, condenses it and adds more practical information! Make sure you check out the Crash Course!
This book has been my reference for that course and my YouTube series and I really like it! It has been very helpful.
I recently got this lamp to do a review on (check out my YouTube channel to see it) and it’s sweet! I just had to tell you guys about it. As you can tell, it’s pretty awesome and it’s what I am going to be using for all of my reading! It’s also fully adjustable. It’s just great! Check it out.
So that is my reading list! Let me know what you guys think! What is on your reading list for the end of the year?
