IT350 - Web and
Internet Programming
Fall 2005
Lab 06 - The Smart Money
Introduction
You’ve been offered a “starter loan” of
$20,000. This is a fantastic opportunity, but what are you going to do with that
money? This week's lab will help you explore three options: bank savings,
casino games, and stocks. We will, of course, be doing this all with
JavaScript!
Part of your grade for this lab will depend on how well you
make use of JavaScript functions.
Requirements
You must create a folder on your web drive called
"Lab06" (without the quotes) and store your work in that directory.
This lab does NOT draw on the
previous labs, so there is no need to copy your old web pages into this
directory.
This week you will make a single new
web page, money.html, such that:
- Your page has a prelude
declaring it as an XHTML document, and it roughly follows XHTML
rules. Validation is encouraged but
not required.
(Hint: place HTML comments around your JavaScript, as the book does, so
that the validator won’t complain about your JavaScript).
- Your page is reasonably appealing to look at
(e.g. using styles, colors, etc). Your page should be tasteful and easy to
read. No need to spend a lot of
time on this, just make it reasonable.
- When finished, you will have
a page that looks something like this when it is first loaded:
You do not have to make it look exactly like this (colors etc.) but
the general layout should be similar.
- The page will have a single
button that, when clicked, performs all of the calculations described
below. It is strongly recommended
that you first make the HTML for the left column only, and get the
JavaScript working for just this column (“investing”), then
later handle the “craps” and “stocks”
columns. When complete, here is
one sample output after clicking the “Calculate Results”
button:
- You must have separate
functions for the savings, craps, and stocks computations (described
below). You should also define
other functions as appropriate – avoid repeating code where
possible! At least one of your functions must return some value, and at
least one function must have one or more arguments (you will likely have
more than this).
- As always, you must provide comments for your code! Give a brief description of each function, and (aside from very short funtions) the major sections inside each function.
- The leftmost column shows
what would happen if you put your money in a savings account. The user
will provide the annual interest rate earned on the money (initially
$20,000) in an input field. You will have four additional input fields
below the interest rate which, when the calculate button is hit, will be
populated with the value of your investment after 10, 20, 30, and 40
years, respectively. The formula for computing the value of your
investment over time is:
Value = Principal * e(rate
* time in years)
(Hint: There are some handy functions
in the Math object that will help you – see textbook section 12.3)
Your page should generate an error (popup message) if the
user does not specify valid interest rate (greater than zero and less than or
equal to 0.2 (20%). Additionally, your page should not perform any
calculations (e.g., do nothing for the investing, craps, or stocks columns)
until the user enters a legal value. Instead, do nothing and just wait for them
to enter a correct value and click the calculate button again.
- The middle column represents
what would happen if you played craps with your money. The user will
provide the amount bet on each hand in an input field. You will have four
additional input fields below the bet amount which, when the calculate
button is hit, will be populated with the amount of money you have after
10, 100, 500, and 1,000 games. Labels these fields appropriately! If at
any time the amount of money you have becomes zero (or less!), it should
remain zero for the rest of the games (i.e. it's impossible to go into
debt).
Do not simulate the whole craps game here (but see the extra
credit). The odds of winning each individual craps game is 49.3%. If the
player wins, their cash increases by the bet amount. If they lose, the bet
amount is subtracted from their cash.
Your page should generate an error if the user does not specify a valid
bet (greater than zero and less than or equal to $20,000). Additionally,
your page should not perform any calculations until the user enters
a legal bet value.
- The last section represents
what happens if you invested all your money in stocks. The user can choose low or high
risk. For low risk, you normally
earn 7% (simple interest – no need to use the compounding equation
above) on your money each year, though there is a 5% chance that a stock
market crash instead wipes out half of your money. For high risk, you normally earn 10% on
your money, with a 15% chance that a crash instead wipes out half of your
money.
Use radio buttons to select low or high risk. If your form was called
‘chance’, and these buttons had a name of ‘risk’,
then document.chance.risk[0].checked will tell you if the
first button is checked or not (true or false), and document.chance.risk[1].checked is for the second
button.
The default should be that neither low or high
risk is checked in the form. Display an error message if the user has not
picked one when they hit the calculate button. Again, your page should not perform
any calculations until the user has made a selection for this.
HINTS:
1.
You do NOT want to create all
of the HTML for the table, input boxes etc. using JavaScript. Instead almost all of this will be done with
HTML in the <body> section. Then
you will use JavaScript to interact with the HTML you create.
2.
The example in section 10.6 is very helpful for
understanding a.) how to use JavaScript to read/write
the value of an HTML input box b.) how to use
JavaScript to make something happen when you click on a button. Note though that this example is simulating
individual craps games, which is different from what you are doing.
3.
Using Mozilla Firefox is highly recommended for testing. However, your final result should run on Firefox and IE.
4.
You should not use document.writeln() inside
your functions that are called by ‘onclick’. Doing so erases your whole page and starts
over with just the new content that you just output. Instead if you need to output something to
the user (or to debug) either use window.alert() or change the value of some input box.
5.
Avoid using variables with the same name as as the ‘name’ of some element in your form
– in some browsers, this can cause difficult behavior.
.
Your web page must be constructed using Notepad or a similar
text-only editor. The use of programs such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Frontpage, DreamWeaver, ColdFusion, Mozilla Composer,. etc. will be considered an honor
offense.
Extra Credit
For a nominal amount of extra credit do some/all of the
following:
1.
Make a new table that shows dynamically how your
money changes over time. For instance,
have three boxes showing the amount of money you have under each of three
scenarios and update these periodically (perhaps twice a second) to show how
much money you have left after a certain amount of time. To do this you will have to make some
assumption about how many craps game you do per year.
2.
Write a simulator for some casino game. Not craps, because the book does that, but
perhaps for poker or blackjack. Show the
cards that were played in some appropriate way. Have a button that causes one
game to be played, or else have different buttons that lets the user choose how
to play (e.g., hit or stand? what to bet? double down?). Update your total money appropriately when a
game/hand is over.
Deliverables
- Your page should contain all
of the elements described in the requirements section above.
- All of your files should be
in a folder called "Lab06" (without the quotes) on your web
drive. Your instructor will assume that your web page is viewable at http://www.mXXXXXX.it350.cs.usna.edu/Lab06/money.html
where XXXXXX is your alpha number. You may want to check that this URL is
viewable and that everything works correctly from a computer where
somebody else is logged in. If you've goofed and linked to a file on
your X drive, this will help you catch it!
- Turn in the following
hardcopy at the beginning of class on the due date, stapled together in
the following order (coversheet on top):
- A completed assignment
coversheet. Your comments will help us improve the
course.
- A printout of the source to your
Lab06/money.html file.
- If you use any
external script files, include a printout of those too.
Addenda
1.
Don’t use names that start with a number, like “10years” –
this goes both for regular variable names as well as the “name” of
your text boxes, which are accessed like variables.
2.
If you want to use an external script file, we suggest the following syntax
(modified from the lecture). Otherwise,
the browser may ignore later <script> tag if you try to include JavaScript
inline in your document. Use this:
<script
type = "text/javascript" src="calc.js" > </script>
Instead of using:
<script
type = "text/javascript" src="calc.js" />
3.
The “name” attribute of a <form> is not valid XHTML (but you
need it for the techniques we are using now). So you will get validation errors on this
only. Either ignore these errors or
change to an earlier version of XHTML.
4.
When you use JavaScript to read a value from a form, the value you get is a “string.”
You may need to convert it to a number
before using it.