{"version":"https:\/\/jsonfeed.org\/version\/1","title":"mathspp.com feed","home_page_url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/tags\/pygame","feed_url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/tags\/pygame.json","description":"Stay up-to-date with the articles on mathematics and programming that get published to mathspp.com.","author":{"name":"Rodrigo Gir\u00e3o Serr\u00e3o"},"items":[{"title":"Using an LLM to write a countdown timer","date_published":"2025-01-22T19:50:00+01:00","id":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/using-an-llm-to-write-a-countdown-timer","url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/using-an-llm-to-write-a-countdown-timer","content_html":"

I used an LLM to write a countdown timer and I have mixed feelings about the result.<\/p>\n\n

Using an LLM to write a countdown timer<\/a><\/h2>\n

In this article I will tell you the short story of how I used an LLM to write a simple countdown timer for me.\nI will show you the code, what went well, and what went wrong.<\/p>\n

The timer we will be building will accept the number of minutes as a command argument:<\/p>\n

python cd.py 3<\/code><\/pre>\n
And it will then display a countdown timer like the GIF below shows:<\/p>\n
\"A
The countdown timer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
First iteration<\/a><\/h3>\n
To get the first iteration of the code, here is the prompt I gave to GPT-4o:<\/p>\n
\n
“Write a pygame script that accepts a number of minutes using sys.argv and creates a basic countdown timer displaying the time as 10:00, 09:59, etc, all the way to 00:00.\nThe background should be white and the numbers should be black. Use basic event handling to allow quitting the countdown and pressing space should add another minute to the timer.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Full code of the first iteration.<\/summary>
import sys\nimport pygame\nfrom pygame.locals import QUIT, KEYDOWN, K_SPACE\n\n## Initialize pygame\npygame.init()\n\n## Screen dimensions and colors\nSCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT = 400, 200\nWHITE = (255, 255, 255)\nBLACK = (0, 0, 0)\n\n## Fonts and other settings\nFONT = pygame.font.Font(None, 80)\nFPS = 60\n\n## Parse command-line argument for the timer duration\nif len(sys.argv) != 2 or not sys.argv[1].isdigit():\n    print(\"Usage: python countdown.py <minutes>\")\n    sys.exit(1)\n\nminutes = int(sys.argv[1])\nseconds = minutes * 60\n\n## Set up the display\nscreen = pygame.display.set_mode((SCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT))\npygame.display.set_caption(\"Countdown Timer\")\n\n## Clock for controlling the frame rate\nclock = pygame.time.Clock()\n\nrunning = True\nwhile running:\n    # Event handling\n    for event in pygame.event.get():\n        if event.type == QUIT:\n            running = False\n        elif event.type == KEYDOWN:\n            if event.key == K_SPACE:\n                seconds += 60\n\n    # Timer logic\n    if seconds &gt; 0:\n        seconds -= 1 \/ FPS\n\n    # Render the timer\n    screen.fill(WHITE)\n    minutes_display = int(seconds \/\/ 60)\n    seconds_display = int(seconds % 60)\n    time_text = f\"{minutes_display:02}:{seconds_display:02}\"\n    text_surface = FONT.render(time_text, True, BLACK)\n    text_rect = text_surface.get_rect(center=(SCREEN_WIDTH \/\/ 2, SCREEN_HEIGHT \/\/ 2))\n    screen.blit(text_surface, text_rect)\n\n    # Update the display\n    pygame.display.flip()\n\n    # Cap the frame rate\n    clock.tick(FPS)\n\n## Quit pygame\npygame.quit()<\/code><\/pre>\n
<\/p>\n<\/details>
I know a bit of pygame so I glanced through the code and it look promising enough, so I ran it with python cd.py 3<\/code> and the countdown started.\nI pressed SPACE<\/kbd> and the countdown increased by 1 minute.\nEverything looked fine.<\/p>\n
Adding a new feature<\/a><\/h3>\n
After this first iteration I wanted to change the code so that, after the countdown was finished, the background and foreground colours flipped each second.\nThis is what I typed:<\/p>\n
\n
“Change the code so that when the timer hits 0, the background and foreground colours reverse each second.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
GPT-4o promptly replied with some edited code.<\/p>\n
Full code of the second iteration.<\/summary>
\nimport sys\nimport pygame\nfrom pygame.locals import QUIT, KEYDOWN, K_SPACE\n\n## Initialize pygame\npygame.init()\n\n## Screen dimensions and colors\nSCREEN_WIDTH, SCREEN_HEIGHT = 400, 200\nWHITE = (255,...<\/code><\/pre><\/details>","summary":"I used an LLM to write a countdown timer and I have mixed feelings about the result.","date_modified":"2025-07-23T16:49:02+02:00","tags":["llm","opinion","productivity","programming","pygame","python","scripting"],"image":"\/user\/pages\/02.blog\/using-an-llm-to-write-a-countdown-timer\/thumbnail.webp"},{"title":"Animating a tree fractal","date_published":"2025-01-12T19:10:00+01:00","id":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/animating-a-tree-fractal","url":"https:\/\/mathspp.com\/blog\/animating-a-tree-fractal","content_html":"
This article walks through the code used to animate a tree fractal.<\/p>\n\n
I really enjoy fractals and for the longest time I've been meaning to draw the classical tree fractal that starts with the main trunk which then successively splits into two branches, that themselves can be seen as the full tree.<\/p>\n
Today I quickly put together the code to do this and then I animated the rotation of the tree to make sure it's easy to see the self-similarity of the tree.<\/p>\n
This is the animated GIF that I produced:<\/p>\n
\"Animated<\/p>\n
Drawing the tree<\/a><\/h2>\n
To draw the tree I wrote a recursive function (obviously!) that draws a trunk and then recursively draws the remainder of the tree.\nTo “recursively draw the remainder of the tree” I needed to compute the two trunks that stem from the trunk I just drew, so to do that I:<\/p>\n