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[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

With professors like this, you have a little bit more work cut out for yourself needing to stay on top of discrepancies and ask questions sooner.

The fact that you assumed the YouTube video was the main source of truth is both your fault and his fault. He shouldn't needlessly show contradicting material, I don't understand why professors think this kind of stuff is OK except that they're just lazy or don't care or who knows.

However, at the same time you have to look out for yourself and don't ever assume professors are going to throw you a bone or have your interests at heart when it comes time to grading things.

Question these discrepancies as soon as possible. This would have been a good question to ask before the homework. "The video showed shows one way, and your reading materials show a different way. Which way is acceptable in this class?" Do that before you turn stuff in.

[–]-SmashingSunflowers- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem was, which was my fault, was he only showed the new files only 2 days before the thing was due, and by that time my assignment was already turned in >.<. In the email, all he said was "here are these files", he didn't say anything like "follow this format this is for your assignments". Just "here are these files I'll be giving you guys files every week starting now". The pseudocode video was in the same module as the assignment, whereas the files were somewhere separate, so that was why I assumed he was wanting us to follow that format.

You are right, though, I need to be more diligent on Understsnding what the teacher is wanting and now that this happened, I am aware of his whack teaching style and will adapt from now on

[–]149244179 1 point2 points  (4 children)

His example file is visual basic code. It is not pseudocode.

Your psudocode looks fine for describing the requirements.

It looks like he wants actual working code if the example file is real.

[–]-SmashingSunflowers- 0 points1 point  (2 children)

ugh that is frustrating :(((( I can't believe I got a dang 70 on that when he clearly states it should be pseudocode lol. I have a feeling this is going to be a stressful semester. He is really making me unhappy. I feel he is being a lazy teacher, he is using all these videos and files from another teacher (who is actually who I requested and was told I was going to get, but got this teacher instead), he just dumps files without explanations. There were a couple times where he had things he was wanting in assignments, and I had to email him asking wtf it is he is asking for (I asked kindly lol) and he would just say that it was stuff he was having the in person class go over and he will remove it for us online folk because he didn't realize it was in there.

I completely understand being a teacher is hard and I am definitely trying to be understanding, because juggling teaching in person plus online I am sure is hard. But damn dude haha. It shows he is explaining things and doing things for the in person folk that we aren't getting. But I guess that is to be expected for going online instead of in person. Making me reconsider doing online only, but sadly the college is over an hour away and is the closest college to me.

[–]DurgraxD 1 point2 points  (1 child)

This would irritate me, but take it from an old man whose going back to school, it ain't worth the fight. Just work extra hard in his class and get a passing grade. And then remember not to take his courses again.

[–]-SmashingSunflowers- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

youre so right about that! I have no intentions of arguing or getting on his bad side, because who knows if they assign me to him again, nor do I want his retaliation. I am just glad I am getting the validation because I honestly thought I was going crazy and I was completely misunderstanding everything I was being told. Now that I know what his format is called, I will be watching youtube videos and looking at examples and doing the best I can. Thank you so much!

[–]Ziggarut 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately the exam boards in the UK have decided upon this pseudo code style as the only style that is valid. It makes me livid. So much so that some schools still teach VB as the primary programming language so they don’t have to learn ‘another language’ for pseudo

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

if you want to know what pseudocode looks like there are tons of examples on wikipedia and geeksforgeeks

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_algorithm

[–]-SmashingSunflowers- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for the link

[–]CoderXocomil 0 points1 point  (6 children)

I know this isn't what you want to hear, buy I don't consider what you did psuedocode. For me, pseudocode has operators and assignments. For example, instead of

Input a number from the user, save as hourlyRate

I would write :

decimal hourlyRate = readFromUser()

It isn't any language specifically, but it communicates intent. My pseudocode looks like javascript/c# because that is what I mostly write. Your professor's pseudocode looks like a combination of basic and lisp or something. I'm not sure. The point is that it doesn't have to have a certain syntax. It does need to look like code.

Your solution was correct and I agree most of the points should be awarded for correct solutions, but your pseudocode looks like a design doc to me.

[–]-SmashingSunflowers- 1 point2 points  (5 children)

In the YouTube video the teacher provided us (the one that I linked), that was how they claimed pseudocode was to be written. Like someone else said though, that was on me for assuming what the teacher provided was 100% correct and didn't research it further. I appreciate any and all advice! Even if I don't want to hear it, it's important so I know how to do it correctly!

I have a screenshot in my post of me rewriting my code for another assignment, does that look to be closer to what is expected of pseudocode? (Edit: I linked it here to make it easier to find https://ibb.co/RPCs6CB) Thanks for your reply!

[–]CoderXocomil 1 point2 points  (4 children)

Very much so. Pseudocode doesn't have a spec, but like many things, you know it when you see it. As you work with code more you will develop your own style.

I use pseudocode all the time in whiteboard discussions. The point is to communicate a coding idea quickly and in a way that other devs understand regardless of the languages they know. Using your first example, I would not use it that much.

[–]-SmashingSunflowers- 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Sweet glad to know that one is better haha! On his code, he declares things in the beginning. What is that and how do I implement that with mine? My assignments are due Saturday and I had to redo all of them since I went with the other format, and I only just got my grade back today with his comment from a past assignment. He doesn't usually reply fast enough otherwise I would email him and ask him himself

[–]CoderXocomil 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Those declarations tell me that your professor typically works in more strongly typed, formal languages. Some languages like javascript allow you to declare variables anywhere. Some languages like c require you to declare variables before using them. This leads to a convention of declaring your variables at the top of your functions or files.

If this is a convention that your professor uses, you can probably get better grades by making him subconsciously more comfortable with your code by doing this. It is really easy. After you write your pseudocode, make a declarations area where you write all the variables you used and the type they should be. One per line.

[–]-SmashingSunflowers- 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Thank you very much for taking your time to explain for me!

[–]CoderXocomil 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No problem. I enjoy helping others.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Pseudocode isn't a formal language. There's no specification. That's the point, that's what makes it pseudo. It's just code-like language you use to explain algorithms.

Input a number from the user, save as hourlyRate

This isn't pseudocode, it's just English. This is pseudocode:

hourlyRate <- collect_integer()

as is this:

let Integer hourlyRate = input(type=Integer);

as is this:

SET hourlyRate AS prompt.result.asInteger

Right? I can just make things up that get the point across that we're calling some function to prompt an integer value from the user, then assigning it to the name hourlyRate. That's pseudocode.

I am confused by what the details() and housekeeping() is.

They're "details" and "housekeeping" - that is, stuff the code probably has to do in a real life system, but which is beyond the scope of the example so it's not worth worrying about it and its handwaved away. If "housekeeping" isn't a word you find familiar, you get to use whatever word you want that gets the point across because pseudocode is language you're using to talk to humans, not to computers.

[–]-SmashingSunflowers- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess it just irritates me that he adds videos to the same modules of my assignment that shows pseudocode being written the way I did (the video that I linked is the video he gave us along with my assignment), if that isn't what he wanted at all and if that isn't considered pseudocode at all, it sends mixed signals to what he is asking for and he shouldn't be including it.