What's The Point Of Paper Programming Questions?

[rudrasete]

In my college, we have programming questions on paper. They'll give you a page of code, and then ask you what the outcome is.

It's not just theory. Usually what they involve is putting down some lines that will trick you. Like assigning a value, assigning it to another value, deallocating, etc. And then finally asking the outcome.. So you have to trace the code carefully and keep track of what is happening to it.

I really don't see the point in this because when is a real programmer EVER in that situation where they have to write code without access to the compiler?

These paper questions are asking you to take on the role of the compiler. In course where you have to build your own compiler, this makes sense I guess. But for general programming courses?

Is this common?

[rudrasete]

On 4/3/2022 at 4:53 PM, rudrasete said:

In my college, we have programming questions on paper. They'll give you a page of code, and then ask you what the outcome is.

It's not just theory. Usually what they involve is putting down some lines that will trick you. Like assigning a value, assigning it to another value, deallocating, etc. And then finally asking the outcome.. So you have to trace the code carefully and keep track of what is happening to it https://routerlogin.uno/ https://192168ll.link/.

I really don't see the point in this because when is a real programmer EVER in that situation where they have to write code without access to the compiler?

These paper questions are asking you to take on the role of the compiler. In course where you have to build your own compiler, this makes sense I guess. But for general programming courses?

Is this common?

I got this,...