Compsci 6, Spring 2012, Hangman How-to

code directory

1. You will snarf some code. You will create a module named Hangman.py and write code in that module only.

2. Your program must consist of functions and function calls. There can be no global variables in your program.

3. Your program must be robust in the face of user errors, but don't worry too much about that.

4. The user should have the choice of deciding the length of the word and the number of misses allowed.

5. You'll need import modules WordLoader and random in the module you write: Hangman.py.

6. The sample output on the assignment writeup page should be generically followed in that the user should see a representation of the secret word with guesses filled in, the letters used so far, and so on.

We'll supply more guidelines in terms of function parameters and return types as part of class and walkthroughs.

Coding Guidelines

• Functions should be brief/short, ideally 10-20 lines, but that's a guideline, not a requirement.

• Functions that do more than one thing are candidates to be divided into function calls doing the more than one thing. A prime candidate is the play function, it will consist of picking letters, updating word-displays, determining if the game should continue, validating input, and so on. In principle, each of these will be a different function, though in practice that's often not possible.

• A function should minimize its side-effects. Changing one parameter and returning a value are ok. Changing multiple parameters and returning a value should be avoided, though sometimes this is ok too -- have a justification for the code you write.

• Use good function and parameter names.

• You should think about the use-cases for the state in the program, that will help you decide what types to use. For example, if you use a string for what's shown as "__ __ __ __" then you'll need to create a new string when the first and last letters are both 't' since strings are immutable. But ifyou use a list, e.g., ["__", "__", "__", "__"] then you can change list elements and simply print the string that corresponds to the list, e.g., by using the standard " ".join(xyz) Python idiom.