Program 6: Gotta Have My Space

Program 6: Gotta Have My Space

Here's a short experiential program written by someone the first week he was learning how to program. It's designed to print an simple answer. But things don't quite go right.

  1 /************************************************
  2  * Double a number.                             *
  3  ************************************************/
  4 #include <iostream>
  5
  6 int main(void)
  7 {
  8     int number; // A number to double
  9
 10     std::cout << "Enter a number:";
 11     std::cin >> number;
 12
 13     std::cout << "Twice" << number << "is" <<
 14         (number * 2) << '\n';
 15     return (0);
 16 }

(Next Hint 247. Answer 23.)

I taught programming for a while. At the time, I didn't know much about teaching and found it hard to gauge how much homework to give the class. One time, I was stopped by the Fort Worth police because my homework was too hard. True story.

I was driving through the streets of Fort Worth and stopped for a red light. A police car pulled up beside me. I looked at the officer. He looked at me for a moment and then motioned for me to roll down my window. I admit I was a little worried. After all, I was driving an unrestored '58 Chevy and the muffler had fallen out three times so far.

I rolled down my window as directed, and he leaned over to me and shouted, "Steve, your homework is too hard this week."

That's when I learned that one of my students worked for the Fort Worth Police Department. Needless to say, I gave the class an extra week to turn in their homework.