Well, uh, I finished, which actually seems to say a lot. The last question was hurried (convert flowchart to code, and I just copied it down quickly and tried to figure it out after, and I didn't know whether a return statement immediately quits the method or not, but I assumed it did. Other than that, I did fairly well.
Though, I personally think that some of this theory type stuff is a bit unnecessary. I think tests should be on a computer with access only to a text editor (like BlueJ or TextEdit) and the Java API (a list of all the commands and what they do) and the test should be to code stuff. After all, if you can code something, you know all that other stuff, right? I mean, there are people write music and probably couldn't be able to tell you what a minor chord is. Why can't it be the same with programming?
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Current music: Hawk Nelson - Nothing Left to Show
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2 comments:
Theory is important. In music, all you get as an end result is the sound. The general public won't analyze your chord progressions and stuff like that. Granted, some people will. Plus, knowing music theory will make you a much better composer. If you can know, on paper, what chords work together, without having to just play something and hear if it sounds good, you can come up with much better stuff.
While the general un-musical public won't notice your chord progression, with programming, knowing little things of theory will help make your program faster, and that, they'll notice. I realize I haven't taken any university-level programming, nor do I know exactly what kind of theory you're talking about, but I'm guessing it will really help in the long run, when you get to really complicated programming (on the other hand, that's what they said about writing out "let" statements in Math class). If you really want to know more about this, you should talk to my brother-in-law about it (he'll be there at Christmas).
Besides, if you study music in university, it's almost entirely theory anyways. Yes, there are composing assignments. But they grade them on the theory. In the same way, I'm sure they grade programming assignments on the theory behind them.
Ah, but that's why there's a time limit on tests. If you know the theory, you can get it done within the time limit. I never said theory was useless, just not necessarily testable to such a degree that they need to ask "What does void do in a method statement?"
For example, other than devices with wireless communications, our mech engineering midterm and final exam is completely open book. But, if you rely on looking things up, you're not going to finish in time.
Theory isn't useless. If you can code well, you know the theory already, and it shows in your programming.
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