Snake Charming

Posted on October 5th, 2012

Filed under: Code — Karl Olson @ 4:04 am

Or, why I’ve added a new category to the blog.

I’ve come to realize that when I don’t have school work to do, music to write/produce for other rad musicians, or reviews to write about cartoons, I should probably try to be proactive in keep my programming skills sharp. While I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing anything too serious at the moment, I figure short Python scripts might be a good plan. Thus, I’ve added a code section to my blog, and (hopefully) this means I put the extra time in my day that isn’t going into the above responsibilities into something more productive than reading up on internet news I’ll forget a day later.

Eventually, these posts will just be updates that say I’ve posted something new to git-hub or something similar, but to inaugurate this, I have written a little script that compares cost of ownership between two cars. Check it out after the break.

##the utterly simplified car cost comparison script v.0.1 ##author: karl olson ##website: karlrolson.com ## ##known issues: ignores the cost of automotive maintenance such oil changes, ##let alone cost of part should something break down. would need enhancements ##to compare vehicles that run on fuels that have different costs.


print ('Automatic Automotive Cost Comparison')

print ('Finds how many miles you have drive before the difference ' +

       'between two cars washes out.')
##get car prices, average mpg, gas prices

car1price = int(input('Enter first automobile\'s price: '))

car1mpg = int(input('Enter first automobile\'s average mpg: '))

car2price = int(input ('Enter second automobile\'s price: '))

car2mpg = int(input ('Enter second automobile\'s average mpg: '))

gasprice = int(input('Enter gas price: '))
##take the price difference between the two models

##v.0.1 - lazy assumption that second car is cheaper

##also assumes that the first car has a higher mpg
##miles traveled so far - 0 since they are new

milage = 0
##swap prices/data so that end user can enter vehicles in any order rather than

##high price first, low price second

if (car1price < car2price):
    temp = car1price
    car1price = car2price
    car2price = temp
    temp = car1mpg
    car1mpg = car2mpg
    car2mpg = temp

##if mpg of the more expensive vehicle is less than the less expensive vehicle
##don't even bother running the price comparison algorithm
if (car1mpg <= car2mpg):
    print('total of cost of ownership will never reach parity.')
else:
    ##take the initial price difference between the two models
    pricediff = car1price-car2price

    ##calculate total costs so far for each car until the prices of the second
    ##reaches the first

    while (pricediff > .01):
        #calulate number of gallons price difference buys you

        gallons = pricediff/gasprice
        #calulate total milage so far.

        milage = milage + (gallons * car2mpg)
        ##add price difference to car 1

        car2price = car2price + pricediff
        ##add fuel economy adjusted price difference to car 2

        ##also assumes that the first car has a higher mpg

        car1price = car1price + (pricediff * (car2mpg / car1mpg))
        ##print results so far.

        ##print(int(car1price), int(car2price), int(milage), int(pricediff))
        ##take the price difference again for next loop

        pricediff = car1price-car2price

print('$', int(car1price), ' is where ownership costs for both cars ' + 'are the same, and they will been driven for ' , int(milage) , ' miles.')

Or, since my code tag css could use some help itself, you can download the code itself.

Snake Charming

Posted on October 5th, 2012

Filed under: Code — Karl Olson @ 4:04 am

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