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Re: A small challenge at beginner's level

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On 8/4/2017 4:23 AM, Wayne wrote:
> On 8/3/2017 5:57 PM, Silvio wrote:
>> And it is a pointless exercise to boot. Programming is not about exploring
>> obscurities and extremities but about common sense and good taste. You are teaching
>> neither. Your students deserve a better teacher.
> 
> Rants such as this should have no place in this forum.

When posting something to usenet then one should expect
comments. Good or bad or both. Politeness is somewhat
optional.

A comment calling an exercise in Java for bad is definitely
on topic for this group.

And even though it may not the most polite post of the
month, then I don't see it as unusual rude either.

> Teaching programming is not about the solution to some trivial
> problem.  It is about training students to think in ways that
> are often unnatural to them.  

>                              But teaching innovative
> problem-solving is not about forcing beginners to learn tons
> of syntax or forcing them to StackOverflow or the like to copy
> and paste an answer to a more realistic, non-trivial question.
> 
> Solving this particular problem is not the point; figuring out
> how to solve problems is the point.  Once the students know
> more about Java, the examples can include "correct" use of
> language features and more realistic challenges.  I have no
> doubt the OP is well aware of this and adjusts exercises to
> the level of their students.

Systematic problem solving is important.

But they will not learn systematic problem solving by this
exercise.

The solutions will require much higher skills than the
trivial but non-compliant ways of doing it. Most likely
none of the students will be able to solve it.

The students will based on this exercise conclude that:
* programing is very difficult
* programming is a kind of black magic where one need
   to find obscure features of the language/library
   to solve problems

 >                                        I, for one, would love
 > to steal (er, I meant adopt) some excellent exercises for my students
 > beyond the standard ones like "show all the ways with legal U.S.
 > coins to make change for someone of 45 cents", guess the number,
 > Fahrenheit to Celsius converter, and so on.

Those exercises may be boring, but unlike this one they
actually encourage problem solving:
    problem->algorithm (in broad sense)->code

> If someone doesn't feel the challenge is a useful one, then they
> should ignore it or suggest a better one.

There is no rule saying so.

It is allowed to argue that something is bad without providing
a better alternative.

In fact there are not many rules for usenet.

Arne

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Thread

Re: A small challenge at beginner's level Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2017-08-03 23:57 +0200
  Re: A small challenge at beginner's level Eric Sosman <esosman@comcast-dot-net.invalid> - 2017-08-03 18:12 -0400
  Re: A small challenge at beginner's level Wayne <wayne@nospam.invalid> - 2017-08-04 04:23 -0400
    Re: A small challenge at beginner's level Silvio <silvio@internet.com> - 2017-08-04 23:55 +0200
    Re: A small challenge at beginner's level Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2017-08-07 20:11 -0400
    Re: A small challenge at beginner's level lewbloch@gmail.com - 2017-08-08 07:34 -0700

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