Call this a code review request, if you like. I'm wondering how you'd go about coding something like this.
Imagine you're in a train, and the brakes don't apply instantly. The definition, in the interests of passenger comfort, is that the first second of brake application has an acceleration of 0.2 m/s/s, the next second has 0.425 m/s/s, and thereafter full effect of 0.85 m/s/s. You have a state variable that says whether the brakes have just been applied, have already been applied for at least two seconds, or haven't yet been applied at all. Problem: Work out how far you'll go before the brakes reach full power, and how fast you'll be going at that point. Here's how I currently have the code. The variable names are a tad long, as this was also part of me teaching my brother Python. # Already got the brakes fully on if mode=="Brake2": distance_to_full_braking_power, speed_full_brake = 0.0, curspeed # The brakes went on one second ago, they're nearly full elif mode=="Brake1": distance_to_full_braking_power, speed_full_brake = curspeed - 0.2125, curspeed - 0.425 # Brakes aren't on. else: distance_to_full_braking_power, speed_full_brake = (curspeed - 0.1) + (curspeed - 0.4125), curspeed - 0.625 # If we hit the brakes now (or already have hit them), we'll go another d meters and be going at s m/s before reaching full braking power. But I don't like the layout. I could change it to a single assignment with expression-if, but that feels awkward too. How would you lay this out? (Note that the "else" case could have any of several modes in it, so I can't so easily use a dict.) ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
