Okay, so the other day I was trying to figure out how old someone would be if they were born on March 3rd, 1994. Seems simple enough, right? But my brain just wasn’t cooperating, so I decided to do it the techie way.
First Attempt: Just Ask the Internet
My first move was to fire up the search bar and type something like “age of someone born on 3/3/1994”. I figured one of those online calculators would pop right up.
And it did. A ton. I clicked on the first one, and put in the birth date. Then, it hit calculate.
The answer, of course, showed up right away. Simple and efficient. But that’s not really fun. Where is the fun in that?
Second Attempt: Let’s Get Coding!
I’ve been messing around with Python lately, so I thought, “Why not make this a tiny coding project?” I could’ve used some fancy date-time library, but I decided to keep it basic.
I opened up my code editor and started typing.
- Set the birthdate: I started by writing down the birth year, month, and day,1994, 3, and 3 .
- Get the current date: I know how to get that in there.
- Calculate the age: The core of my code. I just subtract the birth year from the current year.
Ran the script… and Boom! the answer appeared on my screen.
Then of course it hit me. If today is before 3/3 then they haven’t had their birthday yet this year! So, a tiny change to the code, subtract 1 from the age I first came up with if the current month and day are before the birth month and day.
It was way more satisfying than just using an online calculator, even if it took a couple of extra minutes. Plus, I got to brush up on my Python skills, so win-win!
