• Minotaur@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I’m very much guessing that this is just supposed to be a type of pseudocode given the context and vagueness of it.

    It’s a big reason why I really dont like pseudocode as instruction to people learning the basics of what programming is. It made more sense 20 years ago when programming languages were on a whole a lot more esoteric and less plain text, but now with simple languages like Python there’s simply little reason to not just write Python code or whatever.

    I took an intro to programming class in College and the single thing I got dinged on the most is “incorrect pseudocode”, which was either too formal and close to real code or too casual and close to plain English.

    It’s not a great system. We really need to get rid of it as a practice

      • 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de
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        3 months ago

        I mean once you get beyond bash-like scripts python is esoteric as fuck, adding oop to what is essentially a shell is a terrible idea

        That said, there’s plenty of languages with good syntax that is still good when you get into more complex stuff (modern C#, scala, kotlin and more)

        • nxdefiant@startrek.website
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          3 months ago

          The only thing esoteric about python is the bolted-on typing and anything behind a double underscore.

          So yeah, it’s there, but in front of the curtain it’s practically pseudo code.

        • Minotaur@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          I think you’re missing the forest for the trees here pretty heavily.

          Yes, Python has some goofy aspects about managing it while performing high level, in depth tasks.

          This is a post and a comment chain about pseudocode being taught to people who likely just learned what a “programming language” was several weeks ago. Essentially no one taking the GCSE knows what “bash-like scripts” even means.

    • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Reminds me of 7th grade math class, chapter on estimating. Assignment was “Estimate the following values” with problems like 42+28=? or 14*3=?

      One of them was 6*7=? Which having memorized my times tables in 4th grade like they told me to, I knew off the top of my head that it’s 42. I wrote that. And it was marked wrong because I was too precise.

    • psud@aussie.zone
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      3 months ago

      In the 90s my high school used Pascal. That seems reasonable if you only want to teach procedural