Calculate the total price to purchase all the components required to build a state-of-the-art gaming computer from components available on the internet.
Before attempting this exercise, be sure you have completed all of chapter 3 and course module readings, participated in the weekly conferences, and thoroughly understand the examples throughout the chapter. As before, there are 3 main components of your submission including the problem analysis, program design and documentation, and sample test data.
1. Using a similar approach as example 3.6 (textbook page 146): “A new Car Price Calculator”, provide your analysis for the following problem statement: You need to write a program that will calculate the total price to purchase all the components required to build a state-of-the-art gaming computer from newegg.com. You will need to conduct some analysis on newegg.com (or amazon.com) regarding the possible options and prices to be considered. However; assume the computer will consist of the following components:
CPU
Case
Power supply
Motherboard
Hard Drive
RAM
DVD
Sound Card
Monitor
Graphics Card
Operating System
I would recommend you keep the option choices limited to 3 different components, or your program will really grow fast. For example, you could provide options for the Operating System (Windows 7, Red Hat Linux), the RAM (4 MB, 8 MB, 12 MB) and the Hard Drive Size (500 GB, 1 TB, 1.5 TB) and leave everything else as a baseline. I leave it up to you to determine which components you want to add options for and for researching the approximate prices. Be sure your prices are fairly realistic.
Your analysis should be clearly written and demonstrate your thought process and steps used to analyze the problem. Be sure to include what is the required output? What is the necessary input and how you will obtain the required output from the given input? Also, include your variable names and definitions. Be sure to describe the necessary formulas and sample calculations that might be needed.
2. Using a similar approach as example 3.6 (textbook page 146): “A new Car Price Calculator”, provide your program design for the program you analyzed for calculating the total price of your gaming computer. Be sure to describe the fundamental tasks (i.e., things your program must do) needed to solve the problem so you can use a modular design. Provide pseudocode of your overall design that includes the Main module and the order of the module calls (see page 148 for an example) and a Hierarchy chart for the computer price calculator (see figure 3.8 page 148). Finally, list all of your pseudocode for each module. (See pages148-150 as an example.)
Include header and step comments in your pseudocode, using a similar approach as the example provided in section 2.3 (textbook page 86). See example 2.8 on pages 87-88).
3. Prepare at least 5 sets of input data (Test data) along with their expected output for testing your program. Your test data can be presented in the form of a table as was shown in Assignment 1. Be sure that you provide expected output for each test case.