Tips 'N Tricks

Many people say they are good programmers and some stand by the fact that they are "professionals" or "experts" on the topic. But let us tell you this, TI Calc programming is extremely amateur and easy to learn. Unless they work for some company, they aren't that great at what they say.

Here are some tips and tricks for programmers that want to learn efficiency and optimization.

Tips 'N Tricks:

If you are using "output" or "text" statements or statements that normally end in a " ) " (closed parenthesis), then you can leave that out of your code and the process will still work the same. We put them in our PDFs because new programmers would be confused to easily, so it's better to learn completely, then optimizing later.
If you are making a game, depeending on the game, dont stop when you're done. As you can see in ours, there are always more "features" you can add to the game, like menus or a pause feature (if applicable), and whatever else you can think of. Just remember to optimize your program so that it works right with the least possible amount of bytes used.
You may already know, but when programming, you do not have to make a certain button end the program. The "ON" key is the universal break function for EVERY program.
Some programs just repeat a loop. If you make one of those programs, we suggest that you go through the lines of code and make the program delete any information that is not needed while going through the loop. It will run faster and more efficiently. Also keep in mind that the TI-83 will gradually slow down if the loop is extremely large or memory-consuming.
While loops are a great alternative for programming large programs that would normally have many Lbls and Gotos. You can substitute a "While" for the "Lbl" and put any number after the "While". So instead of having Lbl 1 through Lbl 99, you can put "While 1" for each Lbl instead. When you're ready to end the while statement, just make it end with an "End". Done! Just like that.
If during a program you create memory that is used then not needed. You can create lines of code to delete it within the program. You can use "DelVar" for variables, or "ClrAllLists" for lists, or "ClrDraw" for the graph (does not work if you have something in the Y= spot.), or "ClrHome" for the home screen, and so on.
Depending on the program, you may have to choose between elaborating it or keepinng it simple. Go to this video to see what we mean. This guy made a program to help you with geometric shapes but it's way to much programming for something you want to be simple and short. Especially for tools, always make sure that you are not overdoing it. You only want your program to be as elaborate as it should be.