Code Your Love: Celebrate Valentine’s Day with Tech

Bliss Abhademere
5 min readFeb 13, 2023
Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash

Valentine’s Day is a special occasion for expressing love and affection towards one’s intimate partner. In this digital age, there are numerous unique and creative ways to celebrate the day, including writing code. Whether you’re an experienced programmer or just starting, this article will provide you with fun and innovative ideas for celebrating Valentine’s Day with code.

Write a Love Letter in Code

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Writing a love letter is a timeless way to express your feelings. Why not give it a tech twist and write it in code? You can do this using a programming language like Python or JavaScript. Here’s a simple Python code that displays a love letter to your partner:

print(
"Happy Valentine's Day, my love! You light up my world, and I am so grateful to have you in my life. I love you more every day, and can't wait to spend many more Valentine's Days with you. Yours always, [Your Name]"
)

The text should be saved in a file with an a.py suffix and run through the Python interpreter to execute this code. Run the command python [filename].py on the command line or in a terminal after finding the file’s location. Your terminal or command line will then show the love letter. Here’s the result in Bash:

Happy Valentine's Day, my love! You light up my world, and I am so grateful to have you in my life. I love you more every day, and can't wait to spend many more Valentine's Days with you. Yours always, [Your Name]

Create a Love Calculator

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Adding a touch of humor and fun to your celebration can be as simple as creating a love calculator. You can write a program that takes you and your partner’s names as input and outputs a percentage that represents your love match. Here’s an example in JavaScript:

const name1 = prompt("Enter your name:");
const name2 = prompt("Enter your partner's name:");

const loveScore = Math.random() * 100;
console.log(`${name1} and ${name2}'s love score is ${loveScore}%!`);

This code prompts the user for their name and partner’s name, calculates a random love score between 0% and 100%, and outputs the result in the console. To run this code, you can use a JavaScript environment like a web browser’s JavaScript console or an online code editor like CodePen.

Build a Virtual Rose Garden

Photo by Biel Morro on Unsplash

A lovely and engaging method to express your love is with a virtual rose garden. To make this garden and share it with your partner, use a package like p5.js. Here is a sample of the code:

let x;
let y;
let petalLength;

function setup() {
createCanvas(400, 400);
x = width / 2;
y = height / 2;
petalLength = 100;
}
function draw() {
background(255, 255, 255);
fill(255, 0, 0);
noStroke();
for (let i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
const angle = map(i, 0, 10, 0, TWO_PI);
const petalX = x + petalLength * cos(angle);
const petalY = y + petalLength * sin(angle);
ellipse(petalX, petalY, 50, 80);
}
}

This code uses the p5.js library to create a virtual rose garden with 10 red petals arranged in a circle. The draw method constructs the background and draws the ellipses that make up the petals, while the setup function sets the canvas size, the circle’s center, and the length of the petals. The map function is used in the draw function’s for loop, which iterates ten times, to determine the angle for each petal depending on its index. The cosine and sine functions are then used to calculate each petal’s x and y position, with the petalX and petalY variables storing these values. Lastly, the ellipse function is called to draw each petal, with the fill color set to red, and no stroke applied.

The result is a simple yet lovely virtual rose garden showing how love and affection can be expressed through code. Installing a local development environment and the p5.js library are prerequisites for running this code. You can find instructions on how to set up a p5.js development environment on the p5.js website.

Here are a few other code-based projects to celebrate Valentine’s Day

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
  • A Love-Themed Interactive Website: Use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to create a love-themed website that features animations, music, and messages to your loved one. You can use tools like GIMP or Adobe Photoshop to create images and graphics, and a code editor like Visual Studio Code to write the code.
  • A Heart-Shaped Drawing Program: Write a program in a language like Python or JavaScript that draws a heart shape on the screen. You can use basic graphics and drawing commands to create a series of lines and curves that make up the heart shape.
  • A Virtual Valentine’s Day Card: Use a tool like Scratch to create an animated Valentine’s Day card that your loved one can open and view on their computer. You can add music, images, and messages to the card to make it even more special.

Summary

Photo by Oziel Gómez on Unsplash

Using code to convey your love and affection this Valentine's Day can be a potent and original gesture. However, the most crucial thing is to spend time with the people you love and express how much they mean to you, regardless of whether you decide to write a love letter, develop a virtual rose garden, or build a heart-shaped drawing program. Happy Valentine’s Day and happy coding!

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Bliss Abhademere

Node.js backend dev & technical writer. Building efficient systems & sharing technical knowledge. Connect with me on #NodeJS #backenddevelopment #techwriting.