PBS logo: a tiny ninja with a pale face surrounded on either side by two squiggly brackets denoting programming. Get it? Ninja is stealthy!

PBS Tidbit 1 of Y — Display Values are not Data!

This is not a normal episode of Programming By Stealth, it’s what Bart Busschots is calling a PBS Tidbit. Listener @lbutlr pointed out to Bart and me on Twitter that Bart’s math was wrong in his solution to the challenge he posted in PBS 89. The assignment was to produce currency exchange rates for a variety of currencies, based an amount for the base country. That is, 10,000 Japanese Yen is how many Euro, Canadian Dollars and New Zealand Dollars.

The problem was that if you chose large amounts (like 10,000 Yen), Bart’s math fell over in a heap, returning 100 for all countires or with South Korean Won, most countries returned 0.

Instead of being incensed or embarrassed at having made a mistake, Bart dug in, figured out what went wrong, and then wrote up his path to discovery and the tools he used to fix the mistake. He made it a teachable moment. He decided to call this PBS Tidbit 1 of Y because this probably won’t be the last time this happens.

After Bart finished, I talked about another thing @lbutlr told us and how I’m trying to implement it in my challenge solution. I’ll be writing that up once I get it figured out.

You can read Bart’s explanation at www.bartbusschots.ie/….

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