Code Your Way - Week 6 (03/03/2025)

Version Control 3 (branches) & Refactoring

"A helper function is a function that performs part of the computation of another function." Is quite the tongue twisting, logic complicating, and brain hurting definition/explanation, but also could not describe it any better than that...
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Anyway, thats what I did with this weeks assignment to refactor the pre-loader I made at the beginning of the semester.

Refactoring and Creating Helper Functions

Despite already using a custom "cross" function, the draw loop of my pre loader was still pretty dense and showed a bit of repetition. (see image on the left for draw function prior to refactoring)

Through a couple more helper functions, listed below, I was able to shorten the draw loop to less than 12 lines of code. (see screenshot of refactored draw loop below)

1. drawCircle()
2. updateDia1()
3. drawCross()
4. updateDia2andAngle()

the drawCircle() helper function does seem a little redundant as it takes the same arguments as the default p5.js circle function, but in the helper function, the visual properties of the circle are included so it does not clutter up the draw loop.

the updateDia1() and updateDia2andAngle() helper functions were  created specifically for the circles and the crosses respectively.

I did consider attempting to combine them as their logic is rather similar, but decided against it as it may further complicate the function with too many variables.

If I did make any changes to these helper functions, I would add some arguments to make these even more modular. Though these variables (dia1, diaChange1, dia2, diaChange2, angle, etc...) are already globally declared and can be easily changed if necessary.

The helper function I am probably most excited about is drawCross(). Drawing these elements with push() and pop() in the draw loop took up so much real estate, being able to condense them down to 2 simple lines was so gratifying. 

Experimenting with branches

who knew naming a branch was just as hard as naming a variable...
I kind of had an idea of what to do next with my pre-loader, but did not expect it to be this hard to name it well enough to be descriptive and not confusing for the future. 

Then I reread our assignment instructions and realized that we were supposed to do some more refactoring in this new branch so that we can merge it into the main branch. This lead to an adventure of trying to rename a branch so that it makes more sense.

In the moreRefactoring branch, I began even further simplifying the draw loop to draw both circles and both crosses.

Aka, helper functions that calls another helper function. Exactly as the meme up top suggests.

Finally, merging the moreRefactoring branch into the main branch and then deleting the moreRefactoring branch