[raddan]

My experience (I am a CS professor) is that, even when you attempt to provide partial credit for programs that do not compile (as I do), the code is almost always seriously flawed. We all know that attempting to write an entire program in one go is not a great idea. It’s hard to anticipate where a program might go wrong if you’re not developing it incrementally. So I don’t blame instructors who just decide to cut their losses. It may be painful for a student, but it stops that kind of behavior very quickly.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

As long as you give bonus points for the most horrific part of software development... getting the goddamned IDE configured correctly or close enough to do work.

[jeff_d_miller]

vim myprogram.c

gcc myprogram.c

That brings you 90% of where you need to go, especially for a CS course.

It's not obvious to students. The insight to simplify and simplify until things work and only then keep piling new things on top, that's a really powerful one and is underappreciated in teaching CS.

[tonightstoast]

I certainly don’t blame professors for doing that - partial points are difficult. But you probably know students are asking for help from other students on how to get things to compile.