What a great country and then they make you write code on paper in tests :/

#India

#Hungary, too. Fortunately not always, but when it happens its annoying as fuck. And most of the time we have the computers right in front of us, but we're not allowed to use them.

I mean we did this in the US on occasion as well, at least my school did. Just one of those things

I'd bet almost everyone has coding on paper tests.

It's really not that terrible, especially for intro classes to make sure you're actually learning the material.

@s0LA It's fine until you are expected to program multiple classes without a single error. That just sucks.

@s0LA I think you should read about Indian computer science education.

@abhishekr700 The docs how Indian CS education works are available on paper only. With curry flavour. ^^

I will map out state logic on paper. I see no value in writing actual code on paper though. Pseudocode yes, but actual syntax no. There is no value in that verbosity for thinking through an algorithm.

@Demolishun actual syntax, with brackets, indentation, even semicolons

Yes they cut our marks for that

@s0LA @Stuxnet Pseudocode, logic okay, except suddenly slow handwriting (which isn't a flaw in programming) becomes a fake flaw, inducing a false self image in students who already spend a lot of time battling Dunning-Kruger.

But why spend time writing semicolons or curly braces on paper when there's actual useful stuff to learn?

I've met programmers who were convinced they were the best but couldn't type with ten fingers properly. Now, that's something we could test instead of fucking handwriting in the 21st century on a CS course.

And about the logic: I can't see the logic. In fact, I have to write it line by line from top to bottom, barring me from writing in semantic order inserting lines wherever I want.

Moreover, handwritten tests promote short code as opposed to clean code, because suddenly an extra method can cost you time on an exam, which is incomparably more important than runtime or flexibility.