Can I teach Val Royeaux Coding in 3 months or less?

And How can a person with ZERO coding experience beat the shit out of nerds.

Ahh… The Val Royeaux

Intro

Val Royeaux is the most flamboyant location in the video game Dragon Age: Inquisition. In fact it was here where I met

• Josephine whose relationship was started with the Inquisitor
• Vivienne was working in Val Royeaux

Its richness and historical culture makes it unassailable. Even the Corypheaus decided to play the Game of politics as he sent Calpernia, his most decorated agent. But what this has to do with this article…

A Speculation

How the hell would I teach people in Val Royeaux Coding in just 3 months and where would I start?

The What?

I’ll start with BASIC. If you start with Javascript and HTML as your “margin of safety” then please know there’s a point of diminishing return to the later. BASIC allows you to master the 20% of commands that are rinse and repeated in the programming world 80% of time. Remember I’m teaching Val Royeaux in just 3 months and sequence is the key.

The Macro

PRINT: you’ll use this command a lot.

For example: PRINT “[TEXT]”

It Prints(displays) [TEXT] and that’s that.

Notice the presence of “This is a demonstration of the TRON command” and how after RUN it is printed. Ignore the [10][20] part for now…

Learn more: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/BASIC_Programming/Beginning_BASIC/Documentation

SUB: This is the second most useful command.

GW-BASIC uses GOSUB command.

Above example of code is taken outside of BASIC. It’s a code that basically says to IC to turn an LED ON and wait for 0.5 seconds and then turn LED Off. Do that for 15 times and then do it for 5 times. And then exit.

That gosub flsh command means

“Jump to flsh:, I don’t want a no so make sure Led turns on and off for 15 times and then come back good dog. Don’t be lazy. You’re in favor so go and check again if LED flashes on and off repeatedly for 5 times ASAP.”

The return command is the point of diminishing returns at this point.

Learn more: https://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=KeyPgGosub

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The Booleans

• +,-,/,* — Add, Subtract, Divide and Multiply respectively.

For Example

PRINT 80+20

Gives out

100

• LET: used to define a string and integer

For Example:

LET F= “unlucky”

Now it means “F is unlucky”

Use Case:

PRINT F

Output:

unlucky

• INPUT: Used to take INPUT from user.

For Example:

INPUT “What’s your name”; N$

Gives:

What’s your name?…

Typing the name…

What’s your name? Jakoozi

My N$ = “Jakoozi”. If you want to ask numbers, remove the $(dollar) sign and voila!

Use Case:

INPUT "What is your name"; N$

PRINT "Hello, "; N$; "!"

Gives:

What is your name? Jakooziu ←I type my name as Jakooziu

Hello Jakooziu! ← Prints Jakooziu

Learn more: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/QBasic/Basic_Input

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Logic

IF…THEN…ELSE

10 IF N<0 THEN PRINT "Number is negative" ELSE GOTO 20
20 IF N>0 THEN PRINT "Number is positive" ELSE PRINT "Number is zero"
30 END

For above statement, each time computer checks value of N whether

N < 0

Or No

N < 0

then it checks if…

N > 0

or No

N > 0

Moreover, the computer takes ELSE route…

Number is zero

IF is used to make a bold statement. THEN is used to define follow-up actions. ELSE is alternative course of action if first statement is not satisfied.

So above code means…

“Hey be sure N doesn’t equal 0. In addition, check if N is larger or smaller than 0. Then follow merry-go-round and print the corresponding statement as to whether Number is, unfortunately, really Zero. And Please be specific. I want my users to know exact situation. Make them remember.”

TRUE or FALSE

Think of 1 as True and 0 as False. In some contexts HIGH and LOW is also used.

• >, < — Basic Boolean actions. > define “Larger Than” and < define “Smaller than”.
• “” — Quotation marks are used when defining Alphabets(called strings but it’s a fancy word for a beginner)

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The Back Story

Knowing these statements, you’ve learnt 20% of programming. Sure you can learn more advanced stuff from there. But this is the macro. If I had to point out just a single list in your whole life to learn about programming, it would be this one. Master these and the other 80% would be easy to learn. The point is your can learn to program in 2 months(as I did some 4 years ago) and first I learned these commands(they are the ones with the most frequency). Even if you program outside of BASIC, which you will, you’ll find these anywhere. After 5 weeks of practice, the rest 3 weeks were spent learning 80% of BASIC including but not limited to Databases. I didn’t follow the traditional learning method(such as starting with Strings, Databases and higher-level logic, making me lick my own poop ewwh…!). In fact I graduated to learn Visual basic(because it deals with GUI and it’s the IDE which greatly enhances your knowledge).

What’s Left Now?

C, C++ and Java at the same time(Arduino is a combination of three languages) then I will teach Val Royeaux HTML in just 5 Days. The rest 4 Days will be dedicated to Javascript(the macro stuff; this is big language). At this point Val Royeaux will pick their axes and start exploring. I gave them the tools they needed to work their ass off on the roof. Now the snow will keep falling and I must leave. Which leads us to…

The Raspberry Pi

Now I buy a Raspberry Pi. Actually the Raspberry Pi model B+ stock is ordered in bulk. Now people of Val Royeaux should have ZERO problems with linux. I will sell these Raspberry Pis and earn 20% profit margin on sale of each item. The money is up-thrust and morale is high. The startups keep thrusting in a very short amount of time. Dear Val Royeaux gets more than it asked for. Good Business.

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About Author: A random buddy who’s 17 year old. I started to program as a part of my professional education but it had become my personal obsession since then. I also do other fun stuff like running this medium and I also have a blog. You can find me on my YouTube Channel: https://goo.gl/oCve7J