[VBprogrammer]

If that is the case then the education system is thoroughly broken. It is obvious that a person who took the time to do that learned far more than they would than had they copied one of millions of Hello World examples from the internet.

That being said, I wouldn't rule out a bored TA opening the file not seeing a printf and assigning a grade based on submitting something.

[_sigma]

Not at all; TAs are paid poorly, have other more interesting work (i.e., their research) to do, and spending the time to deal with 'clever' is not a good usage of time. Sure the student learnt more, but that doesn't mean this is what they should have handed in. Have fun on your own time, but don't waste the TAs time.

[VBprogrammer]

We might have to agree to disagree. If TAs aren't interested in students diving deeper into the course material then I'm not sure they should be paid at all.

But perhaps the less radical approach would be to pay them enough such that they can take the time to judge the work on it's merit.

[_sigma]

>But perhaps the less radical approach would be to pay them enough such that they can take the time to judge the work on it's merit.

I assume you have not TAed: I'd like to agree with you, but the realities are it is poor pay for crappy work. Most students don't care about their work. Most students seem to be unable to follow basic instructions. I go out of my way to help students if they care and stay late at labs for these students, but I have no patience for wasting my time because someone wants to show off and deliberately make my life harder. As is, when I'm being paid for 6hrs of lab + marking/week, and I am already spending 8+hrs a week because students can't format their assignments properly, don't write in complete sentences, etc, I have zero interest in patting this guy on the back. Instead, I have to do more work for no pay so he can feel clever.

[SixSigma]

I'm fairly sure that executing arrays is not part of the course material.