From: Dave Burt <dave@...>
Date: 2006-03-31T21:58:42+09:00
Subject: Re: Learn to Program, by Chris Pine

JB wrote:
>  I'm stuck trying to do the part to make it do '99 bottles of beer on the
> wall' song. I get started in what I hope will work and next thing I know I
> have way too many variables and nothing makes sense. I even did something
> that made it loop the integer 0. I had to Ctrl-c on that one. <sigh>
>
>  Here's what I quit trying at, because no matter how many breaks I took or
> whatever, it just wasn't making any sense. :
> ...
>  I too wish the author had put examples, say on some pages in the back or
> something.

But if you ask this group, you can get interactive answers!

Let's start again with that one. We need a loop counting down from 99. So 
first, we need a counter.

beer = 99

Now, we need to count it down.

beer = beer - 1

But we need to do that repeatedly - it goes in a loop.

beer = 99
while (something to end the loop?)
  beer = beer - 1
end

How long should we keep looping? We don't want to go past zero. In other 
words, we loop while our counter is zero or more.

beer = 99
while beer >= 0
  beer = beer - 1
end

OK, now we've got the basic structure of the program - one loop, beer starts 
at 99, and decreases until it gets to 0. But there's no output yet.

See how you go putting some flesh on that skeleton, JB - post back when 
you're done. (I found learning to program it was better to write than read, 
so put aside Herr Froelich's solution and make your own!)

Cheers,
Dave