Operation: Benji! Day One

(The title, dear readers, is a reference to the nerdy British computer programmer from Mission: Impossible 4. I love that movie.)

So I decided to learn Java. I already know a tiny bit of Python, by which I mean that I know how to hold increasingly awkward pre-programmed conversations with my computer, who seems to nurse an unnatural fondness for bananas. But in order for me to succeed in my Java class next year, I must first teach myself the basics. And that’s why Operation: Benji! has commenced.

I’ve learned quite a lot, actually. I’ve learned public static void main(String[] args). I don’t know exactly what that means, but it certainly looks official enough, except the last part reminds me of pirates with strings. I’ve also learned about classes – apparently Java codes are not exempt from the No Child Left Behind policy – and loops, which for some reason call to mind those places where you try to kill yourself on roller-skates.

I also wrote a nifty program that, when you run it, takes a value x, multiplies it by 4 until it reaches 10,000, then divides it by 2 until its value goes under 20. I can’t imagine an instance where I’d actually need to use it, but there’s a certain satisfaction present in just clicking the ‘Run’ button over and over and over and over and over and over until the number 796 is firmly imprinted in my head.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if there’s a Java equivalent to Python’s raw_input. You see, I want to make a program that calculates the Drake Equation, just in case any SETI scientists knock on my door and ask me for one. Most people would probably call this scenario ‘unlikely’, but then again, most people would also call the presence of flying whales on Jupiter ‘unlikely’. (It’s not. Read Terry Deary’s Extraterrestrials).

And that, dear readers, concludes Day One of Operation: Benji! Stay tuned for Day Two’s entry. Maybe I’ll write an even more exciting program, one that involves powers and square roots.