3 ms·

You can achieve that just by having them write code that doesn't do exactly the same thing you've shown them.

• danso 11y ago
  That's what the homework is for. But for new students who have never written code or experienced even a prompt (the closest thing to that now is the web browser address bar, which stops being a prompt as soon as you click to bring focus to it) -- it's helpful to confirm for themselves that a code snippet works as described, from the typing of the first character to the actual execution. Too often, beginners (and frankly, experienced programmers such as myself) believe that they truly understand a snippet of code just because they read it. And being beginners, they lack the discipline and the wisdom to know that code is not just human-readable machine instructions, to be read as if it were a stilted essay, but something to be interactively tested and changed. Also, those new to coding don't realize that copying/reusing code is just fine. But understanding what it does before you attempt to re-use it -- that's the challenge.