[icepat]

Pen and paper in my opinion is absurd. You will never write code by hand. Ever. Writing things by hand teaches you how to do something in a way you will never use, so the memories being developed are going to be attached to a context that is alien to the reality of what your end goal is.

[rightbyte]

The programs written by hand where really simple and like a third of the exam. (Edit: Programming assignments were done on computers of course.)

Fizzbuzz to bubblesort level and a hard one we hadn't been exposed to that I failed. Required knowing the hare and turtle pointer walk thing.

I think it is good as an exercise. Just like manual assembler to machine code transcription is good to have part of a course in computer architecture, like a small part.

I regret doing so much of my studies with the least effort approach. In the end I would probably have saved time if I tried to learn like the teachers tried to force me to. Study during the whole course and not just the last week. Try to understand the concept instead of studying for the exam. Etc.