[Tutor] if-elif-else statements

[Danny Yoo]

On Thu, 13 Oct 2005 andrade1 at umbc.edu wrote:

> amount is supposed to equal fine because there are a couple of different
> fines. there is a fine for going over 90mph that includes a penalty and
> then there is a fine for just going over the speed limit as long as it
> is under 90.

Hi Andradel,

Because this is homework, we can not really give you specific reasons why
your program isn't working: we can only give you indirect strategies and
advice.


Has your teacher talked about using and writing functions yet?  It looks
like you have a single main() function to do all the work, and since it's
monolithic, it's hard to test effectively.

It would be very useful if you had a separate 'get_fine()' function that
took the legal and clocked speed limit values, and returned the fine from
those values.

If you had such a function, then you'd be able to more easily test it with
hardcoded values, like:

######
assert get_fine(100, 50) == 500
######

so you don't have to continue retyping your input every time you make a
change to your program.

In fact, I'd recommend temporarily disabling user input for the moment, at
least until you get a get_fine() function that passes simple tests.
Otherwise, what's the point of asking the user for input, if it always
returns a weird answer?

If you have questions about this "test-first" approach, feel free to ask
about it on the list, and I'm sure folks on the list can give a few
examples that demonstrate the technique.



Also, consider simplifying the problem statement: it looks like you're
trying to handle too much at once, with the end result that none of it is
really working right.  It's easier to take a program that is running
correctly and then adding more things to it, than to take a program that
isn't working, and trying to make it correct.

Concretely: can you write a get_fine() function that doesn't care about
the >90mph penalty first?  As it stands, your program will give very
strange results even if there is no speeding going on --- why should the
police owe the speeder money?