Timeline for Should CS students be doing their tests on paper?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
24 events
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| Aug 7, 2019 at 20:33 | comment | added | philipxy | It is a misleading gross distortion to say that Alan Turing did not have the faintest idea about CS or that his CS knowledge did not inform his coding. | |
| Jun 19, 2017 at 9:15 | history | edited | AnoE | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 19, 2017 at 9:14 | comment | added | AnoE | @all: while I see what you mean with the "!=" discussion, it's just a qip to show the gist of the answer on first glance. I believe the stylized "!=" is ubiquitous enough to carry the intended meaning. | |
| Jun 19, 2017 at 9:13 | comment | added | rubdos | Hey AnoE, @username won't work in answers; you can however put a link to the comment if you want to (right click the comment's time, copy that link) | |
| Jun 19, 2017 at 9:12 | comment | added | AnoE | @rubdos: Nice! I've integrated it into the answer. | |
| Jun 19, 2017 at 9:11 | history | edited | AnoE | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 19, 2017 at 8:43 | comment | added | rubdos | "You can have great coders who have not the faintest idea about CS (and vice versa, I assume)" Vice versa: Alan Turing is considered a great computer scientist, but he died around the time the first programming languages were invented (the 50's). So you assumption seems correct. | |
| Jun 19, 2017 at 6:04 | comment | added | Yakk | @Skipp Computer Science is about computers in the same way Astronomy is about Telescopes (misquote of "Edsger W. Dijkstra"). Would you say "astronomy is a superset of telescope operation"? | |
| Jun 18, 2017 at 21:30 | comment | added | Andrea Lazzarotto | I agree with this answer, although my experience is a bit different. Of course CS is not coding, but in my BSc (University of Venice) functional programming, imperative programming and OOP were all mandatory courses. You expect that a computer scientist can turn an algorithm into code. I finished my MSc in 2016, FWIW. But still, programming is just a tool and CS is much more... today many improvised "coders" don't seem to understand this. "Serious" tests shall always be on paper while assignments can be practical. | |
| Jun 18, 2017 at 15:48 | comment | added | Meower68 | Most of my CompSci education was theoretical. There were assignments; write code, get it working, submit it, etc. That's not CompSci; that's the APPLICATION OF CompSci. How does a red / black tree work? How is searching it O(log (n))? If you can't explain it, how can you apply it? My Database class dealt, extensively, with relational model. Most of it was done using algebraic notation. Once I had that, SQL was a breeze (2 class periods). Today, I write pretty complex SQL. "An exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer" -- Dijkstra | |
| Jun 18, 2017 at 14:35 | vote | accept | Safirah | ||
| Jun 17, 2017 at 22:45 | comment | added | Slipp D. Thompson | Your title makes as much sense as “English Writing ≠ writing”. Suggestion: To better fit your points, change the title to “CS > coding” or “CS ⊃ coding” (and reword a few things within). | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 11:30 | comment | added | AnoE | @BrianR, Viliami: yes, they should do tests on paper. I thought it were pretty clear with the last paragraph, and have added a small TL;DR at the beginning. | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 11:30 | history | edited | AnoE | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 16, 2017 at 10:11 | comment | added | Jules | @BrianR "handwriting LISP is a massive pain" -- random fact: LISP is the only language currently in widespread use that was originally designed to be handwritten. | |
| Jun 16, 2017 at 10:06 | comment | added | Viliami | so.... should they do their tests on paper or not? | |
| Jun 15, 2017 at 14:55 | comment | added | Brian R | This is the answer I most agree with, so I will add my own anecdote. I am a fairly recent graduate of both a BS/MS in CS from a mid-level state university and I took three years of CS in high school. In all of these programs, tests were handwritten and focused mostly on answering theoretical questions, drawing diagrams, and only rarely did we debug code or write our own (and handwriting LISP is a massive pain). Quizzes were also handwritten but focused on pseudocode to describe a concept. Assignments were the true coding projects. CS is about theory, not "how to write language X". | |
| Jun 14, 2017 at 18:16 | comment | added | JBentley | On my CS course, programming was a core module (Java) and other modules often included some coding elements (either real code or pseudo-code). In all cases code had to be written out on paper as the OP describes. IMO this answer spends way too long describing your particular CS course and making assumptions that don't necessarily generalize well, and not long enough addressing the actual question (advantages of paper vs computer). | |
| Jun 14, 2017 at 17:22 | comment | added | Giorgio | I had a similar experience. We had some Pascal in the first year and after that professors assumed we are able to code: You have to do some exercises on operating systems? Go get a C book and learn it yourself. | |
| Jun 14, 2017 at 16:54 | history | edited | AnoE | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 14, 2017 at 13:51 | history | edited | AnoE | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 13, 2017 at 22:54 | history | edited | AnoE | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 13, 2017 at 22:45 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 13, 2017 at 22:48 | |||||
| Jun 13, 2017 at 22:44 | history | answered | AnoE | CC BY-SA 3.0 |