Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I had an enjoyable evening yesterday. My son was working on a programming project for a freshman-level computer science class (college). I – after being asked – jumped into the problem. Several observations.

(1) Computer science professors aren’t any better at creating meaningful programming assignments than they were 30 years ago.

(2) Programming assignments are strongly dependent on the programming language being used. In this case, Python is the language being used.

(3) Methods of problem solving are “caught” after a lot of instances. They are not “taught” by themselves.

I guess it is this last observation that bothers me the most. I watched my son struggle with what statements to type in what order. I grabbed a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. The assignment showed the input data and the desired output data. I filled in half a dozen data structures that lay between the original and final data. We worked step by step to create each of the interim data structures. Problem solved.

How did I know to do that? How did I know to do it? I guess I “caught” it over the years. Drawing the interim data structures is one method of solving a problem. I suppose there are dozens of other methods. Experience brings them to the surface.

I still find it a shame that the problem solving methods are not taught directly. That finding is some manifestation of my personality – I guess.