[Tutor] Can anyone help answer this?

[DL Neil]

On 10/06/20 9:51 PM, Alan Gauld via Tutor wrote:

> I really hate when students (and I assume is is a homework/tutorial
> exercise) get asked to write bad code. This function should be
> entirely unnecessary. The function for creating instances is the
> constructor - it's already written. We don't need another.
...

> If we are going to teach objects lets use the objects!


That's one of two reasons for requesting that such students (one 
imagines) provide the course/source information. Students routinely 
grumble about 'the difficulty of assignments' and not understanding 
their wording. That's one thing. However, when practicing professionals 
and other tutors have criticisms, could?should we do something about the 
very problem that @Alan exposes.


That said, it can be difficult to comprehend, from a (?lost) student's 
struggles with a single assignment, the sequence of presentation the 
tutor is using. Let's take, for example, @boB's recent question on abc-s 
(that didn't actually use an abc). There are many ways to answer his 
question, but too many such 'answers' actually have the potential to 
confuse or even de-rail DaBeaz's chosen step-by-step approach. As 
mentioned to @boB (possibly privately) I have too much respect for that 
tutor to want to leap in and (arrogantly, appear to) 'correct' the 
methods he employs. Whereas, at the end of the course, if the trainee is 
still 'lost' and unable to exhibit a well-rounded understanding of 
Python, development, objects, OOP; that would be a different story!

Which leads me to the other end of the spectrum: there are lazy tutors 
who simply copy questions and chuck them 'over the wall' at a class, 
without any pedagogical consideration or care (I've seen them AND fired 
'em!). NB I'm not saying that applies in the case of the OP or of that 
Tutor! However, given the expertise available on-the-list, perhaps it 
would not be out-of-place to also adopt a rôle of helping tutors to 
improve their assignments, and thus, the quality of their training and 
commensurately, of the abilities of their graduates to use Python?
-- 
Regards =dn