How many decisions does it take to hit a ping-pong ball?
Very many. 10s of thousands; maybe more.
The answer may surprise you.
However,
controlling a ping-pong paddle
and coordinating it with a moving ball
is very difficult.
Scientists have written a computer program
for a ping-pong playing robot.
The program constantly makes
very complicated decisions involving many
thousands of IF
s and other control structures.
We won't write programs quite that complicated here.
An airline company has a three level price policy:
Here is a start on the program that calculates airfare:
PRINT "Enter full fare" INPUT FARE PRINT "Enter age" INPUT AGE ' 'Calculate discount rate based on age . . . . 'Calculate and print the fare PRINT "Your fare is:", FARE * RATE END
RATE
will be one of three values:
0.0, 0.70, or 1.00 based on AGE
.
What type of control structure can you use to make this choice?