Student: "I didn't have time to write 150 lines of code for the homework."I have lived this story several times recently, as the homework in my Programming Languages has become more challenging. A few students do not complete the assignment because they do not spend enough time on the course, either in practice or performance. But most students do spend enough time, both in practice and on the assignment. Indeed, they spend much more time on the assignment than I intend. When I see their code, I know why. They have written long solutions: code with unnecessary cases, unnecessary special cases, and unnecessary helper functions. And duplication -- lots and lots of duplication. They run out of time to write the ten lines they need to solve the last problem on the set because they spent all their time writing thirty lines on each of the preceding problems, where ten would have done quite nicely. Don't let anyone fool you. Students are creative. The trick is o help them harness their creativity for good. The opposite of good here is not evil, but bad code -- and too much code. -----Master: "That's fine. It requires only 50."
Student: "Which 50?"