CPSC 120A - Assignment #3

Design Plan Due Friday, November 11, 2005 In Class

Phase I Due by Tuesday, November 15, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Completed Project by Friday, November 18, 2005 at 4:00 pm

Your program should work for a player being either a person or a computer. Near the beginning the program should prompt for the names of each player and, for each player, ask whether the player is a person or a computer.

Your program should then prompt the user for the number of sticks in each row to set up the Nim board. The player whose name was entered first will take the first turn. A human player will enter two integers for a turn - the first will be the number of the row they want to remove sticks from and the second will be the number of sticks to remove from that row. The program should make sure that the numbers input are valid. A computer player will generate a random play - that is a row number between 1 and 3 and then a random number of sticks to remove from that row (the play generated should be valid). After each player makes a move the board should be displayed in a format similar to the following:

Row 1: | | |
Row 2: | |
Row 3: | | | | | |

After each game the program should ask if the user wants to play again. If so, ask again about the number of sticks in each row (but assume the players will be the same) to set up a new board. The program should keep track of overall statistics - how many times each player won, the average number of moves the winning player made, the minimum number of moves the winning player made, and the maximum number of moves the winning player made. These statistics should be printed at the end of the program.

Step #1: Design (due in class Friday, Nov. 11)

• Go through the Object-Oriented Design Activity (similar to class activity) to identify appropriate classes and objects for this project. Ask yourself the following questions:
  • What are the things the client program needs to know about objects in the class?
  • What service methods should the class provide so the program can get that info?
  • What "behavior" do objects in the class exhibit? What "operations" are performed on or by the objects?
• For each class, construct a skeleton that identifies instance variables and methods that are needed. Your skeleton should list the instance variables and types, as well as the method headers followed by comments elaborating what the method does.

• Devise a plan for writing the program - divide the work up into small parts to implement and test before proceding.

Hand in your skeleton and work plan in class on Friday. DO NOT BEGIN IMPLEMENTING

Step #2: Implement Phase I Specifications will be handed out in class Wednesday.

Step #3: Correct & Complete the Program!

Requirements: As always, your program should:

• Use good programming style (see comments from other assignments).
• Meet all specifications (there will be some specifications for your classes and methods).
• Be correct!
• Have proper documentation. Have header documentation at the top of each file that gives your name, the date, the file name, and a description of the purpose of the class (what type of objects it represents) or of the program. Have header documentation at the beginning of each method that describes what the method does, what it takes as parameters, and what it returns. This documentation should have borders that make it stand out (so it is easy to see where methods begin). Have internal documentation that delineates and succinctly indicates what each major part of the code is doing.

Grading As usual your program will be graded on both style and correctness with very little credit for a program that does not compile or run. A grading rubric will be handed out.

Academic Integrity Reminder: Programming assignments are to be your own work. You may get help on the specifics of the assignment from no one except the instructor. You may not show your program to anyone or look at anyone's program or share ideas with anyone about how to write the program.

Hand in: For phase I just send a tar file by email. For the completed project send a tar file and hand in printed copies of all program files.