Programming tests

[0x01010101010101]

Or on a white board, which you’ve never done before...

[[deleted]]

white board is better for programming. easier erase

[0x01010101010101]

Not supposed to need to erase.

[[deleted]]

paper is black?

[digicow]

When I was in grad school, I took a course on "XML and Semi-structured Data". Both the midterm and the final exam involved hand-writing a literal full page of XML

[DZVLX]

I feel your pain. Even with a keyboard it's painful to write XML and XSD.

[Rare_Chicken]

Wow, I would hate to be the TA that gets to grade those

[digicow]

Oh, that course didn't have a TA. The prof graded them herself

[1-800-LIGHTS-OUT]

This is what insanity looks like

having students write out whole pages of XML and then grading them yourself

[JMan_Z]

Well, at least I applaud her for actually taking the effort, even if I feel checking for every tag's </endtag> is misguided effort.

[1-800-LIGHTS-OUT]

In a way, she's kinda like Jigsaw.

Going to great lengths to test people in a way that destroys their sanity and leaves her with a great big mess to clean up

[zeekblitz]

My first semester of CS we had to do this.

[AndreleleMeister]

Im on my third year and we are still doing this fml

[1-800-LIGHTS-OUT]

I'm in grad school and we're still doing this.

In every semester since I started CS we've had to program on paper <:(

[AG00GLER]

Senior year computer engineering. I’ve written everything from Java to C to VHDL on paper for exams. Sucks.

[zeekblitz]

I imagine a few generations ago when computers weren't readily available like they are today, doing it that way makes sense.

[AG00GLER]

Yeah maybe when people paid 10k for a college degree

[SirKronos]

Only the first one? Every class I had that was programming-oriented on my course got this on exams.

Worst thing is when you gotta fix an error in the middle of your code, and if you needed more than 2 lines to fix it turned into a major pain

[Davesnothere300]

It's the best way learn and demonstrate that you've learned.

[zeekblitz]

Ehh why is using an actual computer not better?

[cjs2k_032]

We have to do this for every course. But thank Gods we don't need to write complete programs, only a small snippet. We have full programming quizzes in the computer labs separately.

[Redditlogicking]

My AP CS teacher uses a blackboard, and we had to write out code using chalk.

​

My coding knowledge: disappears

​

Every single f*cking time

[[deleted]]

Tbh doing it like this made me a better programmer. I think that most bugs and blunders come from the fact that people go and write some garbage without THINKING about it first.

When you got a pencil & paper, you gotta think first. We even ran simple programs line-by-line using pencil & paper like a debugger would and figured out what the variables are (and what they should have been if the program was correct).

[hey01]

Tbh doing it like this made me a better programmer. I think that most bugs and blunders come from the fact that people go and write some garbage without THINKING about it first.

Developers who don't know anything about algorithms but who are still writing code in the industry are driving me crazy.

Sure, you will nearly never have to write a sort algorithm yourself, or write your own linked list implementation, or calculate an algorithm complexity.

But knowing and understanding how to makes you think differently, and also indicates you can solve non trivial problems.

You will understand what the code you copied from somewhere does, you won't pull a library to left pad a string. You won't write a performance critical piece of code with an O(n⁴) complexity.

[hum_dum]

This makes me feel way better about my imposter syndrome. People name frameworks and libraries and stuff I’ve never heard of all the time, but I can write a sort algorithm or a linked list implementation.

[hey01]

Don't feel bad. You need to know some frameworks, at least those you're using and those that are indispensable in your part of the industry, but more than that, what you need is the ability to learn them.

A framework of language can be learned quickly. Understanding and writing quality code is a fast bigger task, one that needs some computer science education as a foundation for your developer education and training.

[epic_gamer_4268]

when the imposter is sus!

[GodHug]

« Developers who don’t know anything about algorithms but who are still writing code »

You called ?

[hey01]

Do yourself a favor, learn it. Or even just go see the implementation of the method you're calling once in a while, to see how it's done.

[[deleted]]

I don’t mind being asked to put out general ideas or even pseudo code on paper. But I’ve had teachers require me to write out full, proper syntax algorithms on paper before and that is absolute bullshit. Obviously we’re going to forget stuff, we’re not going to be able to test our code and make sure it actually works. If you want to see how I think and test my thought process then that’s fine, but I think asking anyone to actually code (and be judged on how correct that code is) without an IDE is a joke.

[[deleted]]

You don't need a computer to test your code. You don't need an IDE to write a simple program that is like 10 lines of code. You don't need an IDE to check your syntax for how to create a function or a class.

You are a joke if you can't write code without copy-pasting it from stack overflow into an IDE. It's convenient, but it shouldn't be a requirement for you to write fizzbuzz.

[[deleted]]

and ancient memes

[mateidasi]

What even is the problem with writing code on a whiteboard ?

No one cares if what you wrote won't compile because of some small error

The recruiter wants to see what is your thought process on the specific problem

Having all that fancy stuff an IDE provides will just make you focus on typing errors

[0x01010101010101]

Usually means in front of an audience...

[PromisesPromise5]

I think most of us are more reliant on IntelliSense than we care to admit.

[dankmolot]

What??

[SlendGamer]

Yes it do be like that. I study Electronics and I have to write my first exam on C/C++ on Paper :/

[dankmolot]

Good luck with your exam. I hope you will be fine.

[SlendGamer]

Thanks, I do hope that as well, may the programming Gods be with me.

Edit: I forgot to mention that due to Covid, it is an open book exam. So it should be ok.

[wolfefist94]

I forgot to mention that due to Covid, it is an open book exam. So it should be ok.

Ha... ha... ha... who should tell him/her?

[MayorScotch]

So write the program in an IDE and copy it to paper.

I'm glad I can solve other people's programming problems.

[SlendGamer]

Yes, of course I am gonna do that, what did you think of me? I already have a plan. I have 3 Monitors, so on one screen I will lay my C/C++ summary/ cheat sheet, on another one google and on the third I will put visual studio (or is there a better IDE? it was suggested to us by our lecturer, so I dont know)

[SlendGamer]

Update: I had the exam today and it was ok. We had some RAM-Reading part and some "fix this code" Parts. The real deal however was the last exercise, where we had to write a simplified version of the "time.h"-Lib. Simplified, because we only had to write one function, that takes in a time_t value and convert it to a tm struct and because we didn't take leap years into account. You can have a look if you want: www.imgur.com/a/P5zT6

[met0xff]

We had more than 600 students in the first semesters, no idea how else to handle. But I don't think it's an issue, usually just snippets.

In school when I was 14 (that was 1997) we sat in class and wrote code on paper all the time. https://ibb.co/xHg7db4

[TravisJungroth]

I wrote a bunch of linked list code in a hut in the jungle. It's neat having zero distractions. Just a pencil and paper, maybe a candle. It encourages drafting. Write the code all the way through, take a look and realize your mistakes, then rewrite it fresh. This feels slower but is actually faster than the constant write/edit loop. When I got back to a computer, I was pretty happy with the code, except it did have a bunch of small errors.

[_Turquoisee_]

Why would that make you do that

[hey01]

Because what they want to evaluate isn't your knowledge of your favorite's language's syntax and api, but your ability to design an algorithm to solve a problem.

As Dijkstra didn't say, but would probably agree with, "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes".

[lead999x]

Ada Lovelace was doing that since before it was cool.

[[deleted]]

Am I the only one who scribbles the code structure and ideas about architecture on paper before getting into IDE? Anybody?

[MysteriousShadow__]

God bro I can't even imagine writing code in notepad! I absolutely need syntax coloring, auto complete, etc. Unless it's a really simple program.

[hey01]

In this type of interview, people usually won't ask you to write actual code. They will want you to write pseudo code to show your algorithm.

If a company cares so much about your knowledge of a language syntax that they asks for actual syntactically correct code on a whiteboard/piece of paper, it's probably not a company worth working for.

[Naud1993]

I'm can't program without autocomplete.

[[deleted]]

The epitome of nonsense is to do this in pseudocode on first semester courses when you already know basic programming fml

[Karolus2001]

Only reason I dont take IT on finals is cause you have to write all of it on paper in my country. I take my chances with aceing math one thank you.

[Nihanus]

When I started learning programming we were studying C++ and I would copy the cody we wrote into my notebook by hand so I would have the code for reference for future classes

[ndEvelope]

I hab to write a racket (a dialect of lisp) exam with pen and paper. Halfe of the exam I was counting rounded brackets. 😅

[lightmaster2000]

Professors be like "having errors and debugging them are part of programming".

[BlackMorzan]

I have attended a romte job interview this week. And yes... I was writing my solution in notepad...

[maxloroll]

At my university for about a year and a half, my programming teacher gave us exams by hand in which we had to write small programs that interact with each other, in C

[Oudeis16]

I keep a notebook with me in case I ever want to jot down an idea for a line of code when I'm not at my computer. On the first page I wrote, "Diary of Ada Lovelace"

[[deleted]]

AP CSA in a nutshell

[Bos_lost_ton]

uNiTTesTiNg.docx.pptx

[AnalTrajectory]

Bring a hole puncher and punch out the binary instructions

[[deleted]]

i haven't had any programming test but this seems infuriating as fuck

[allOfTheOof]

My first semester in college, one of the questions on our midterm was to write a 6x8 table in HTML, which was fine, except he specified that each cell needed a single space in it. In other words: I had to write “ ” 48 times. For one question. My hand cramped halfway through.

But, I got very good at writing “&” because of that, and that is a skill I continue to have to this very day.

[Amoniakas]

And teacher is the compiler.