zlacker

Agreed. I think you could even argue that string manipulation is even more common than uses of math.ceil, floor, the floor division operator (//), and so on. I love math, but this is a programming class.

This also fails my personal rule to always need to have a reason to do something mean - like failing someone on a problem, and no reason to do something nice - like saying it’s fine since it works.

>>ianai+(OP)
> I love math, but this is a programming class.

Sometimes you actually have to do arithmetic when programming. It's useful to teach people these sort of things so they don't cook up half baked solutions in the future.

>>ianai+(OP)
Drastically depends on the kind of problems you're working on.

>>ianai+(OP)
It's a programming class where "algorithmic thinking" (and therefore, in my opinion, some amount of math) is one of the course objectives.

Since the discussion takes place in a low-pressure, guided group lesson, students will certainly not be penalized for suggesting the string method in that setting. Also, students trying to use strings on homework will fail tests in the linter and autograder before they finally submit, so they will have plenty of opportunity to fix their mistake before receiving a grade on their work.