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Today I had a programming exam

We had to read a request, write uml, use case etc...

I think "it's going to be easy!"

Than I remember that for some unholy reason we use java7

Than I remember that the keyword to automatically add getters and setters was added in java10

Had to write getters and setters by hand, on a piece of paper, for 5 classes...

I hate my university, we are Information Engineering that is the closest thing we have to Software Engineering in my city and we still do our programming exams on paper, that doesn't test your ability to program, but your ability to learn a load of information by memory

Comments
  • 10
    I mean, there's lots of uni's that still have paper exams...

    Mine in my last class were 2 parts: 1 day you do paper and the next day you do actual coding.
  • 4
    @Stuxnet the real problem isn't the exam on paper, but a 3 hour java exam, considering that java is usually written with an IDE for a good reason, the test became more of a stamina test than a knowledge test, 3 hours, and it took me (that I'm fairly fast) more than an hour just to write all the getters and all the setters
  • 2
    @SimplyAero I think it's pretty dumb too, but at least keep it short problems and shit. Idk

    I've got a white board to practice writing out code lol
  • 1
    @SimplyAero most exams are about stamina and staying awake. The hardest part is reading the assignments.
  • 0
    UML sucks the live out of me, if you could at least do it in some kind of program, not on a fucking piece of paper that's usually too small and mistakes can't be erased and there definetely will be mistakes.
  • 0
    What? There’s no such keyword in Java 10. Java 11 still needs Lombok to be usable.
  • 2
    We had to do tests on paper too, but they didn't hang on everything you wrote, meaning if it is visible you got the concepts right they didn't deduct points if you missed out on some syntax for example, so I guess it wasn't that horrible.

    // I liked writing code on paper, I still do, not in details but the workflow and pseudo algos..

    I think it gives you time to think about what you wanna do and structure things, if you get a dev env where things get autocompleted for you and you can jump back to add something you missed, you tend to focus on stuff you can do and never think about if you should do it.

    Probably not true for every person, but I've noticed a lot of people (coworkers and classmates) who complained about pen n paper tend to not think ahead. They start doing someting from a->b, see that it's not working (or even miss out on this not being the proper solution to the problem) and still continue to masacre the code out, not doubting themselves even once.
  • 2
    I think paper exams are a pretty good way to test your skills though. Since you need to understand the basics and be able to apply logic. But they shouldn't complain about language versions and shit.

    Last year I had 2 exams where we had to write assembler on paper that sure was interesting
  • 1
    My uni just started using paper in exams, because all students just sent their solution around during the exam (the prof didn't manage to shut down the wifi)
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