Hard disagree. Cover less material if needed, but students should get into the habit of writing tests for everything they turn in. If I was a professor, I would reject any submitted code if it didn't have tests, for the same reason that math teachers reject work if students don't show their work.

[–] gnus_migrate@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's a difference between tests and assertions. Students do test their code, however they don't write assertions, as I said because you want the cognitive load to be as low as possible so that they can master the basics. I'm fine with tests being provided to them, however they should be focusing on learning the constructs at the start.

In any field, the real life practice of a profession is something you learn working for an actual company, whether it's through an internship or an entry level job. Ideally there should be unions or syndicates setting these standards so that they're consistent across the field, just like with other knowledge based professions.

Universities are not corporate training programs, and they aren't supposed to be.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A huge part of computer science is proving correctness, complexity, etc. Almost all of my classes had an automated test suite that your code needed to pass to get full credit for the assignment. I think it's completely reasonable that you "show your work" by writing your own tests from the start.

If programming is just one or two classes of your program (e.g. you're doing IT or something), then I can insurance testing not being a part of it. But if you're going after a formal CS or CS-adjacent degree, you should be in the habit of proving the correctness of your code.

I'm totally fine with other industry norms being ignored, such as code style, documentation, and defensive programming, however, testing should absolutely be a regular part of any form of software development. I want every CS grad to always be thinking in terms of "how can I prove this" instead of just "how can I solve this." I don't think 100% code coverage should be expected, but students should prove the most important part of their solution.