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If you know of other places that do it specifically for programming languages, using this kind of approach, let us know so we can study and attribute properly.

If you know of other places that do it specifically for programming languages, using this kind of approach, let us know so we can study and attribute properly. Thanks. (In the 2012 PL MOOC that Joe Politz and I ran, we had CTF-style exercises, which are still on the Web.) Note: CTF is a very different kind of thing than what we are doing here. In CTF, usually, there is some clear sense of a goal and you are (as you note) given a measure of how close you are, or at least told when you've Ced The F. In mystery languages, there is no well-defined end and there is no measure. Also, your job is not to break one thing, but rather to break the difference between multiple things. That kind of «differential reasoning» is its own separate sort of activity. As an aside, real life often does not give you a measure or an indication of when you're done. Sometimes, maybe, you've set yourself your own goal (e.g., to steal a particular resource), and then you may be able to tell. But otherwise, especially when it comes to learning new things (like programming languages), I'd say this is a more authentic learning activity. Indeed, it grew out in part from my trying to reflect on how I myself approached a new language. So, at least, it's more authentic to me. (-:

kevmo314 8y ago
> Also, your job is not to break one thing, but rather to break the difference between multiple things. That kind of «differential reasoning» is its own separate sort of activity. This seems like splitting hairs. You could wrap this differential reasoning assignment in a function that returns true iff the outputs are different and achieve the same CTF-style behavior. The only difference here is that students get one assignment at a time instead.
- skrishnamurthi 8y ago
  Reductionist theories don't work out that way in practice, but sure: Build it, teach it, and then I'd be happy to talk about your experience and how the difference is only "splitting hairs".

kevmo314 8y ago

> Also, your job is not to break one thing, but rather to break the difference between multiple things. That kind of «differential reasoning» is its own separate sort of activity. This seems like splitting hairs. You could wrap this differential reasoning assignment in a function that returns true iff the outputs are different and achieve the same CTF-style behavior. The only difference here is that students get one assignment at a time instead.

skrishnamurthi 8y ago
Reductionist theories don't work out that way in practice, but sure: Build it, teach it, and then I'd be happy to talk about your experience and how the difference is only "splitting hairs".