the dreaded CS106a pyramid. Solved but needs improvement

[Joshua Friedman]

Hello!

I've solved the dreaded pyramid problem from the itunes Stanford CS106 course, and created myself a pyramid (hint to those having trouble, try manually coding your first two lines in order to figure out what exactly you want your for loops to do. I could have saved myself about a week of mental anguish if I did that!).

Two issues:

1) The pyramid is not quite centered and I'm having trouble figuring out how to do this: is there a set formula to use and memorize from here on out, or do I need to rework my algorithm?

2) How would you fix this code? If I were an actual CS106 student I'd have a prof and some TAs to help me out...but now I don't so I need your experience . Right now, I have each individual layer being laid from left to right, then measuring to go up by one layer, shift the row by 1/2 a brick length, and lay down one less brick per layer until we have one brick. Is there a better way to go about this that I didn't think of?

Thank you very much!

* File: Pyramid.java
 * Name: xxxxx
 * Section Leader: xxxxx
 * ------------------
 * This file is the starter file for the Pyramid problem.
 * It includes definitions of the constants that match the
 * sample run in the assignment, but you should make sure
 * that changing these values causes the generated display
 * to change accordingly.
 */

import acm.graphics.*;
import acm.program.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class Pyramid extends GraphicsProgram {

/** Width of each brick in pixels */
	private static final int BRICK_WIDTH = 30;

/** Width of each brick in pixels */
	private static final int BRICK_HEIGHT = 12;

/** Number of bricks in the base of the pyramid */
	private static final int BRICKS_IN_BASE = 14;
	
	public void run() {
		layRow();
	}
		int bricksInRow=BRICKS_IN_BASE;
		int rowInPyramid=BRICKS_IN_BASE;
		
		private void layRow(){
		    for (int i=1; i<=rowInPyramid; i++){
		    	for (int j=0; j<=bricksInRow; j++){
			int x = (j*BRICK_WIDTH)+(i*BRICK_WIDTH/2)+(getWidth()/(4));
			int y = (getHeight()-(BRICK_HEIGHT*i));
			GRect brick = new GRect (x,y,BRICK_WIDTH,BRICK_HEIGHT);
			add (brick);
		    }
		    bricksInRow--;
		    rowInPyramid++;
		    }
	}
}

[Tim Cooke]

Show us what your actual output looks like. Then show us what your desired output would look like.