New day, new exercise! I again asked for something simple for Python and JavaScript. Here is what ChatGPT gave me:

Exercise: Sum of Even Numbers

Write a program that calculates the sum of all even numbers from 1 to a given number n.

For example:

• If n is 10, the program should output 30, because the even numbers between 1 and 10 are 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10, and their sum is 30.

This exercise will help you practice basic loop constructs and conditional statements in both Python and JavaScript. Here's the outline of what your program should do:

1. Take a number n as input.

2. Iterate through numbers from 1 to n.

3. Check if each number is even. If it is, add it to a sum.

4. After the loop, output the sum.

My Code

Alright here is my Python code!

# Exercise: Sum of Even Numbers

def main():
    while True:
        try:
            user_input = int(input('input: '))
            break
        except ValueError:
            print('Please enter a number')
    print(f'sum: {addEvenNumbers(user_input)}')

def addEvenNumbers(number):
    sum = 0
    while number > 0:
        if number % 2 == 0:
            sum += number
        number -= 1
    return sum

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

ChatGPT thought my code is good but pointed out that my while loop is not efficient. It said I can do -2 steps, then the loop will only half als often. Sounds reasonable. Here is how that should look:

def addEvenNumbers(number):
    sum = 0
    if number % 2 != 0:  # If the number is odd, reduce it by 1 to make it even
        number -= 1
    while number > 0:
        sum += number
        number -= 2
    return sum

Then I asked ChatGPT for the ‘perfect solution’ for this exercise. Here is what I got

# Exercise: Sum of Even Numbers

def main():
    try:
        user_input = int(input('Input a number: '))
        print(f'Sum of even numbers: {addEvenNumbers(user_input)}')
    except ValueError:
        print('Please enter a valid number')

def addEvenNumbers(number):
    # Adjust the number to be the largest even number not greater than the input
    number = number if number % 2 == 0 else number - 1
    # Use sum formula for even numbers: 2 + 4 + ... + n = 2 * (1 + 2 + ... + n/2)
    return (number // 2) * (number // 2 + 1)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Yea… it’s obviously much better than my code. So much more concise! A lot to get inspired about.

Well with that done lets move on to JavaScript!

Here is as far as I get without any help. Can’t make it work because somehow it treats user_input as a string and I don’t know out of my head how to change that. So let’s start fixing this code with ChatGPT

let user_input = prompt("Input: ");
        if (user_input % 2 !== 0) {
            user_input--;
        };
        let sum = 0;
        while (user_input > 0) {
            sum += user_input;
            user_input -= 2;
            console.log(user_input);
        }
        console.log(`Sum: ${sum}`)

turns out what I was missing was parseInt(). So here is the fixed code that actually works

let user_input = prompt("Input: ");
        user_input = parseInt(user_input); // Convert the input to a number
        if (isNaN(user_input)) {
            console.log("Please enter a valid number");
        } else {
            if (user_input % 2 !== 0) {
                user_input--;
            }
            let sum = 0;
            while (user_input > 0) {
                sum += user_input;
                user_input -= 2;
            }
            console.log(`Sum: ${sum}`);
        }

And finally again, here is what ChatGPT thinks would be the perfect answer to the exercise

function promptForNumber(message) {
    let num;
    do {
        num = Number(prompt(message));
        if (!isNaN(num) && num >= 0) {
            return num;
        }
        console.log("Please enter a valid positive number.");
    } while (true);
}

function sumOfEvenNumbers(n) {
    // Adjust the number to be the largest even number not greater than n
    n = n % 2 === 0 ? n : n - 1;
    // Use the sum formula for the series of even numbers
    return (n / 2) * (n / 2 + 1);
}

let user_input = promptForNumber("Input a number: ");
console.log(`Sum of even numbers: ${sumOfEvenNumbers(user_input)}`);

wow promptForNumber(messege) is kind of cool. Not sure how useful it is in real life since I never see these kind of prompts in the ‘real internet’, but at least the functionality is exactly what is needed here.

Also the rest of the code super concise and nice to see.

Cool that’s it again for today. Still so much to learn. Thanks for cheering me on! 😊