Marked down for not following inefficient guide?

[proggR]

I have a question about an assignment I did recently. We were making a rock, paper, scissors game and the teacher asked to have a function to calculate the games played and a function to calculate the games played. I decided not to do those two functions and put in comments that I didn't do them because it was less efficient than incrementing the games played in the main as well as the games won. I had a function that determined the winner return 1 if they won and 0 if they lost and that was just added onto the games won variable. I ended up losing 10% of my mark because I didn't use these two useless functions that would each only contain one line of code. Is that right? Should I really have to play by the rules even if they are wrong? I understand in the future I'm going to have to do what my clients say but I'm pretty sure if I can say "This is inefficient, I can do it better and easier." I'll be able to do it properly 9 times out of 10 as long as it works.

Just curious. I'm going to talk to her after class. I'm just tired of getting bad marks on her assignments because she does things that don't make sense. Then again, maybe I'm wrong.

[Maq]

the teacher asked to have a function to calculate the games played and a function to calculate the games played.

 

Aren't these the same exact thing?

 

It depends how your teacher wanted you to do this.  Maybe they were trying to teach you a certain concept with an easy assignment.  What was the point of this exercise?

[.josh]

You are wrong, and you yourself stated why.  You do what is asked of you.  There could be 100 reasons why she wanted you to make a function.  Maybe to learn about how functions work, maybe so that in a future lesson she can show how to make a class out of it, who knows?  In the real world, clients invest money in what they think is right. If you really feel you could do something 'better,' then the appropriate thing would be to go to the teacher and ask ahead of time, instead of assuming you know what's best.

[.josh]

p.s.-

 

And even if you did in fact know with 100% positive certainty that the only reason why she wanted a function vs. your method is because she doesn't know any better, you're still foolish for overstepping her like that.  It doesn't matter how right you are.  At the end of the day, she's the one who passes or fails you.  You aren't going to get very far in life if you don't learn to respect the boss.  People rarely succeed in overruling the boss.  Try to convince her in the first place.  Try to reason.  If that doesn't work, find another job or do what you're told, because that's what you are getting paid (or marked) for.

[proggR]

the teacher asked to have a function to calculate the games played and a function to calculate the games played.

 

Aren't these the same exact thing?

 

It depends how your teacher wanted you to do this.  Maybe they were trying to teach you a certain concept with an easy assignment.  What was the point of this exercise?

 

Oops. I meant one for games played, one for games won.

 

And I guess it could be to teach functions but we should all know that by now and we have 3 or 4 good, necessary functions in the same program, so two needless ones aren't teaching us anything.

I am dumb for not doing it though. I should have brought it up before instead of after. I guess the extra 8 lines is worth the extra 10%. I'll talk to her still. Hopefully she'll correct it because she knows I know how to do it. I wish she wasn't also the coordinator though. I'm going to have her every year. I guess I'll have to deal with it.

 

[nrg_alpha]

I concur with CV... go through the motions... it's a learning experience. In programming, there are multiple paths to the solution. It's dependant on how you get there.. But if you are in class learning programming, they are trying to teach you about functions, or other aspects, be it arrays, language constructs, etc.. It would certainly be in your best interest to follow along. The goal may not be the 'best way', but rather 'I want you to learn about this for that exercise'.

 

Look at regex as an example.. pick up a regex book, and it will show you how things can be done using that system.. Is it always the fastest or wisest? No, but that's not the point.. the book is about regex, and thus is teaching how things work as such.. same thing with your class. If it's an exercise in functions, they want to see you understand functions.. if you stray from this, you can't fault them for marking you down. Don't worry.. there is plenty of opportunity in the work place to brainstorm and think of what methods would be the best for that particular situation. I just don't think class is the time / place for that.

 

Perhaps what you can do is do it the way they want.. then as a bonus, perhaps show them your alternative.. but if I had to choose only one or the other, do it their way

[premiso]

As iterated above the teacher is always right, whether it is inefficient or not. I started out in College coding properly, but I was getting marked down for it. I improved my relationship with the teacher, and I just learned to follow the directions, do not go overboard and try and be fancy by adding extras. Do what it says, nothing more nothing less.

 

Eventually on my 3rd semester my teachers realized I had the skill and stopped marking me down for doing a bit extra and actually omitted me from going to class, instead they would email me the assignments and I just had to show up for test days.

 

Of course that was a small community college, so they knew who I was. I do not think that would work at a university as you probably get different teachers each go round.

 

I actually think they stopped checking my assignments and just gave me an A, my last 3 semesters of college I had a 4.0 lol.

 

But initially, I had to obey their strict rules until I built up the relationship