I see a lot of people ranting about programming exams on paper. I acknowledged that not having a texteditor is not ideal. But not having a compiler is essential in testing the students programming skills in the first few courses.To many students are completely dependent on the compiler.

Syntax:
Some students writing C++ code have to try to build their program as many times they have lines because of all the syntax errors they make. Why think about all the ; if your compiler will tell you where they are missing?

Computational thinking:
As a programmer you should be able to look at (your own) code and be able to tell what the result should be. Of course this has its limits, but in the small exam questions they get in the first few courses they should be able to do that. To many first year students write a for loop without thinking about the starting value and the end condition. With the repeated process of running the program, changing the starting value or the end condition randomly they eventually get to the loop they need.

I think people underestimate the value of an exam without being able to compile or run your program. But I like to hear your reactions.