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Geek Culture / binary tutorial feedback

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Phaelax
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 03:52 Edited at: 8th Feb 2013 20:38
Honestly, I don't think it's my best work. I feel that maybe I rambled too much and the concept may not have gotten across to the audience. Thoughts and comments?

Binary Tutorial

Bitwise Tutorial

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
Kezzla
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 07:01
I think you hit on the key points well, and explained it well both logically and visually. but then I already understand the concept.

The only thing I can think of is that you kind of just jump right into bits and bytes in one block of text which may confuse new people, kinda ends up sounding like those IQ puzzles, it bits were bytes and blots were blinks then what would blink at at bits of blots?

but then you cant really baby them too much, they can look up a tutorial on Data storage.

I think it gets the point across well.

I'm not a complete idiot -- Some parts are just missing.
zeroSlave
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 16:11 Edited at: 6th Feb 2013 16:58
It's nice and it reads well. I'm gonna mention a couple things. not critiques, just a couple additions that could find a nice home in your article, or possibly a part 2!

You mention binary as being a state of on/off. Maybe show that this is also represented on common household appliances('binary is all around you!!')?


Maybe go in to why it's called base 2 and base 10? And how each number shift is a power of it's base.


And that the value of each digit in a group can be multiplied by it's placement value then added together to get the decimal value.




Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

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MrValentine
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 16:33
I enjoyed reading it good work!

Phaelax
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 19:08
Quote: "You mention binary as being a state of on/off. Maybe show that this is also represented on common household appliances('binary is all around you!!')?"

Good idea.

Quote: "Maybe go in to why it's called base 2 and base 10? And how each number shift is a power of it's base. "

Thought I did. I know that idea was in my head but maybe I didn't state it clearly.

Quote: "And that the value of each digit in a group can be multiplied by it's placement value then added together to get the decimal value. "

It's kinda in there but I think I just sort of glossed over the multiplication part on how it fits together.


I asked friends on FB too (less tech savvy ppl) and they seem to think it's understandable. So I'll add a few tweaks and consider it a job well done afterall.

I'm going to do a bitwise tutorial next, so if any of you have some ideas of practical examples let me hear them. The two I have in mind so far are breaking up a color value into RGB components, and deciphering a timestamp into a readable format (something I did for my zip decompressor). The idea is also to help introduce others on how to follow file specifications for writing applications. I know the first time I saw a document describing a file format I was confused on how to start.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
Libervurto
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 21:43 Edited at: 6th Feb 2013 21:46
I took a long look at your tutorial and as with anything I like I mucked about with it!
GoogleDocs doesn't seem to like formatting of any kind but here it is: link

It looks quite different but I've really just changed the words and their order. Haha, that sounds funny but you know what I mean.

Now who's going to edit my edit?

^ That's what she said.
Phaelax
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Posted: 6th Feb 2013 22:53
Yours seems shorter and more to the point. I think your wording sounds less full of junk than mine, if that makes any sense.

After bitwise, I'm going to do a math tutorial on distance formula, sin/cos movements, and how a right triangle solves several game-related programming questions. The distance formula seems to be one of the most repeated answers to newbie coders, so hopefully in the future I'll just point them to the article and be done.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick
Libervurto
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Posted: 7th Feb 2013 15:48 Edited at: 7th Feb 2013 15:48
I have a couple of short 2D programs that use bitwise and trigonometry quite a lot:

Better Circles:


Filled Triangles


Use them in your examples if you like. They were written in DBC so may not be optimized for DBP.

^ That's what she said.
Phaelax
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Posted: 8th Feb 2013 20:33 Edited at: 8th Feb 2013 20:37
I've completed the bitwise tutorial. Feedback appreciated.

http://www.zimnox.com/resources/articles/?ar=t002


A few things I didn't cover was bitwise complement and bit rotation. I'm not really sure why Lee chose to use the complement operator in place of xor for DB.

Hopefully, my examples were clear and show a good demonstration of the operators.

"You're not going crazy. You're going sane in a crazy world!" ~Tick

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