Story about computer programming

[ferret tech]

i am writing an essay for my school about why to keep offering computer programming in the high school.
for my essay i need a story( 4-5 sentences) about how computer programming helped them think logically or help them to solve a problem.

so, if any of you happen to have a story like that please share.
Or if you have any other reason to why they should keep programming, that would be helpful also



*please not to technical the people i am writing it for aren't programmers

[helios]

A physics teacher once gave us a relatively complex electrostatic attraction problem. The point was finding the 1D position at which a particle's attraction to two other particles of a given charge and polarity was nullified. At this point in high school (third year, or 15 years old), we were still pretty green about algebra, so algebraically finding the intersection of two hyperbolas was out of the question. I had just finished one month of computer science lab*, which was also my first exposure to programming, so I wrote a short QBASIC program to test the attraction at every micrometer or so. Overall, it took me about an hour to write and a couple of minutes to run.
I was the only one in the class who knew how to sort of program and also the only one who solved that problem.

*I went to a tech school were you got, shall we say, workshops (literal translation) of various disciplines -- carpentry, welding, casting, electricity, computer science, etc. -- during the first three years before you had to choose a specialty, which for me was Computer Science (although it was more oriented towards systems analysis and accounting).

[Corpus]

I was once caught by cannibals. I was held in a room with two doors. Behind one was a maneater who would devour me if I opened the door, behind the other was freedom. In the room was also two cannibals, either of whom I could ask one question only. One man, I was told, would always tell the truth, the other would always lie - but I wasn't told who's who.

It looked like a 50-50 shot, but logic taught by computer programming gave me a 100% answer: I asked one of them "What will the other man tell me is behind door A"? Then, if the answer was "Freedom", I would take door B. If the answer is "maneater" I would take door A. I walked as a free man and lived to tell the tale...

Reasoning: If you ask the "true" guy, you will get a "truthfully false" answer to your question. If you ask the "false" guy, you will get a "falsefully true" answer. In either case, you will know that the answer you get is a lie, and you can act accordingly...

[Poke386]

@Corpus

That was quite interesting.

[Zaita]

@Corpus nice adaptation to a puzzle stolen from the movie 'The Labyrinth'.

[Corpus]

Damn...busted :D

[Zaita]

Some of us are old enough to remember that movie :P Hell, we even have a copy on DVD :P

[Mythios]

The Labyrinth - oh memories. Was just as good as the Goonies lol :D

[Scipio]

I'm afraid that movie was before my time. However, today I heard another version of that riddle (I dont know or it's from the same movie): two doors, behind one freedom behind the other death. Three cannibals, from who one always tells the truth, one always lies and one sometimes tells the truth and sometimes lies. You can ask two questions. Good luck :)

(I havent found the answer yet, but tomorrow I will ;) )

[helios]

And over here we have the labyrinth guards. One always lies, one always tells the truth, and one stabs people who ask tricky questions.