“Output the odd numbers from 1 to n, separated by commas, with no trailing comma at the end.”
This child in front of me is a student majoring in Computer Science, currently taking a C language course. At first, he asked me a very profound question.
“How can I improve my programming thinking?”
“Show me a problem you think is difficult.”
As a result, he presented me with this problem.
I thought to myself, this problem is the most basic of the basics; I expected him to ask me something more complex… like a LeetCode problem or a competition question from PTA…
This child is not ready to take off; he hasn’t even learned the basics yet.
He was just muddling through that ‘easy’ C language course, telling me to wait and he would get back to me after class.
Less than five minutes later, I saw his reply…
“Did I ask something too simple…?”
I have never seen a student aspiring to study Computer Science who wasn’t a bit stubborn.
“You’ve only been in your freshman year for two months; this level is quite normal.”
I helped him with two questions. I wondered why he had so many doubts; why didn’t I have as many questions when I was looking for help outside of class…
Then I remembered a question: where was his teacher?
His teacher was willing to help, but was very busy.
From the questions he asked, I could tell that this child loves to think and is asking questions that go beyond what this course aims to teach. His questions were a bit excessive.
But what puzzled me more was their assignment’s online judge (OJ) system. The problem at the beginning, the code he was trying to submit to the OJ system was a really messy piece of code; I could tell it was wrong at a glance, but the child said the system judged the output as correct. I still decided to check it out myself.
Sigh.
I thought of my own teachers.
No matter how bad my alma mater was, it still managed to provide us with resources to stand in this society… Job hunting is so incredibly frustrating.
At least it ensured that for every course, there was a teacher available for questions.
Especially in programming courses, you could find a teacher at any time.
The second question, “Determine if a number is prime.” Isn’t this a must-practice problem in C language…?
To be honest, teaching him made me feel exhausted. Because for beginners, it has to be detailed to the point of being overly meticulous; he would ask me how to modify specific lines of code, and even for the simplest code, I had to come up with an answer on the spot, explaining how to write each line!
I feel this is beyond my responsibility. But now I am doing what his teacher failed to do.
I asked the child to input a different number into the OJ. He said his program was fixed and couldn’t change it.
This is really frustrating.
The only reason I am still learning C language is that it is the language used for operating system development. If you want to study software, you cannot escape C language. Only when working in a company will you use Java.
I can’t even remember if C language has true and false.
And now I have to teach a child to start learning from scratch.
This is driving me crazy.