I Hate Writing Code on Paper in University
I’m a computer science major, and I’ve had my fair share of coding exams. And let me tell you, I hate writing code on paper.
There are so many reasons why it’s the worst. For one, it’s slow. I can type much faster than I can write, and it’s frustrating to be slowed down by my own handwriting.
Second, it’s error-prone. I make a lot of typos when I write, and it’s easy to make mistakes when you’re trying to write code by hand.
Third, it’s just not practical. In the real world, programmers don’t write code on paper. They use computers. So why do we have to learn to do it the old-fashioned way?
I’ve heard all the arguments for why we should write code on paper. They say it helps us to think more clearly about our code and to understand the underlying concepts better. But I don’t buy it. I think I could learn just as much by writing code on a computer and then debugging it.
And besides, even if writing code on paper does have some benefits, it’s not worth the frustration. It’s a waste of time and it makes us less efficient programmers.
So please, professors, stop making us write code on paper. It’s a relic of the past and it has no place in the modern world of computer science.
Here are some of the specific reasons why I hate writing code on paper:
- It’s hard to keep track of what I’ve written.
- It’s easy to lose my place.
- It’s difficult to make changes to my code.
- I can’t easily debug my code.
- It’s a waste of paper.
I believe that there are better ways to assess our understanding of programming concepts. For example, we could:
- Write code on a computer and then submit it electronically.
- Do oral exams where we explain our code to a professor.
- Work on programming projects that require us to apply the concepts we’ve learned.
I think that these methods would be more fair and accurate assessments of our programming skills.