Simple fun with python

[JonDoh]

Here is something fun I did messing with my computer with the low level of experience and knowledge that I have. I have had some experience with python before, but I never built anything cool with it. I had several years of not doing anything with it so I decided to start from the beginning again.

This little bit of code is basically my own personal "Hello World" program:

x = [some number]

while x > -1:

    print(x)

    x -= 1

 

The first time I encountered a "Hello World" program it took me a while to understand why it was special. It seemed like I had done more work than the computer had and I didn't value what was going on. But when I first encountered a loop and could command my machine to do actual work; that seemed cool and interesting to me. My first encounter with a loop really fired up my imagination about the power of what I was learning.

Below is a little adaptation of the code above which accepts a number defined by the user then counts down. An easy improvement would be some error handling but I was just building it to see what it would do to my machine. I recently was able to research and build my own machine. It isn't top of the line by any stretch, but it is far better than the old 2007 dell machine I had been using before. I still need to do some work to get the ram working up to specifications, and maybe try a mild over-clock but I have that on the back-burner for now.

You may notice by the layout I am running a Linux distro. I am running a duel boot Ubuntu and Windows on my machine. I boot into Ubuntu for learning and work. I only have Windows to play games with really.

This first screen is the "at rest" version which really isn't at full rest because I have Spotify and a few mild programs running still, but it is close enough for my purposes. I think the network spikes are due to Spotify reaching out to the web for adds and music.

You can see the code in the file I am using on the bottom left. The top left is the terminal I am using to run the program. You can see I already ran a few mild tests.

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2017 by JonDoh

[JonDoh]

Now for something more interesting. Using this small program I asked my computer to count down from 10 million. I wanted to see how it would interact with my CPU cores. The CPU I have is a Ryzen 7 1700 so it is in fact 8 cores with 16 threads. It looks like Ubuntu sees every thread as a separate core.

I didn't really know what to expect to see but it wasn't this. I find it interesting the different ways my cores are participating with running this simple program. I would be interested in knowing more about what is going on but of course that could be a rabbit hole I don't really need to understand.

Edited December 8, 2017 by JonDoh