Command line flashcard game

Question

I've built a simple command line flashcard game for learning Korean. I'm a beginner programmer, so I just wanted to make sure I'm following best practices, especially pertaining to OOP principles.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Here's GitHub link and reposted below:

class FlashCard
 def initialize
 # TODO: load from file
 @korean_dict = {
 "사과" => "apple",
 "맥주" => "beer",
 "책" => "book",
 "의자" => "chair",
 "피아노" => "piano"
 }
 @english_dict = @korean_dict.invert
 @correct = 0
 end
 # starts the game
 def play
 puts '----------------'
 puts 'KOREAN FLASHCARD'
 puts '----------------'
 dict = pick_dict
 ask_questions(dict)
 print_results(dict)
 end
 # select korean-to-english or english-to-korean dictionary
 def pick_dict
 user_input = -1
 until (user_input == 1 || user_input == 2)
 print "Korean to English [press 1] or English to Korean [press 2]: " 
 user_input = gets.chomp.to_i
 end
 user_input == 1 ? @korean_dict : @english_dict
 end
 # loop through dictionary and prompt user for answers
 def ask_questions(dict)
 dict.each_with_index do |(key, val), i| 
 print "Question #{i+1}: #{key} is "
 input = gets.chomp
 check_answer(input, val, i) 
 end
 end
 # check if user input matches correct translation
 def check_answer(input, val, index)
 if (input == val)
 @correct += 1
 puts "Correct! #{@correct} of #{index+1} correct.\n\n" 
 else
 print "Sorry, the correct answer is #{val}." 
 print " #{@correct} of #{index+1} correct.\n\n"
 end
 end
 def print_results(dict)
 puts "-------------------------------------"
 puts "Your final score: #{@correct} of #{dict.length}."
 puts "Below is a list of words in the quiz: "
 dict.each { |key, val| puts "#{key} --- #{val}" }
 puts "-------------------------------------\n\n"
 end
end
##################
# Runs Program
##################
fc = FlashCard.new
fc.play

• Chris Cirefice: +1 for technology and learning! Another theoretical +1 for reminding me of dictionary reverse (I am building a French linguistics software) :)

Answer 1

The program's data structures aren't necessarily complicated enough for OOP - you'll almost never need to create multiple instances of any of the potential objects. So don't worry about it too much.

The only big problem I can see is that you always calculate both the Korean-English and English-Korean dictionaries even though only one is used each game, which could be a big waste of memory if the dictionaries get larger. I'd suggest waiting until after the user has chosen their direction and THEN invert the hash if you need to, and ideally throw away the uninverted version (unfortunately Ruby doesn't have an invert! method on hashes). If you're reading from a file, you can invert the data yourself as it is read in.

The one OOP improvement I'd recommend is to wrap the dictionary in an abstract data type. Rather than counting on it being a hash, write methods that return a word to use as a question and the translation of input word, and call those. That way, when you want to make the dictionary bigger or read it from a file, you can just modify those methods. For example, when the dictionary gets really big you might want to read it from disk by random access rather than reading the whole thing into memory. Or you could even write a version that makes requests to a web service.

• Jamie B: thanks for the feedback. i took your advice and ask user upfront which dictionary they want to use, so that i only load one dictionary.