Before attempting a more costly clean implementation, you may want to check whether the project is feasible at all. You can do such a check by implementing a quick and dirty proof of concept: a prototype. The goal of a prototype is usually to reduce risks in a project.
A prototype can answer questions like:
- is my programming environment set up properly?
- can we solve a particular algorithmic problem?
- does a library do what we need?
- is the algorithm/library fast enough?
- what safety/security risks are there?
- did we understand the customer correctly?
The following code is a prototype for a Snake game.
The program is a simple game where you move a symbol around with the WASD keys.
The goal of this prototype is to prove that we can process keyboard input and draw into a terminal.
:::include prototype.py
Save the code in :::file prototype.py to a Python module.
On Windows, you need to install windows-curses:
:::bash
pip install windows-curses
Change to the directory with the .py file and execute the code with:
:::bash
python prototype.py
You should see a screen where you can control the 'O' with the keys W, A, S and D:
Discuss the following questions:
- Why do you think is the prototype focused on testing the input/output library?
- Is it more work to write a cleaner version of the prototype later? Why or why not?
- Is there any code that you don't understand?