I found the style checker to be pretty good and helpful. Because for some problems they give a hint, e.g. "this is solvable with a one-liner", the student coul

I found the style checker to be pretty good and helpful. Because for some problems they give a hint, e.g. "this is solvable with a one-liner", the student could figure out himself whether he is on the right track or not. Line-length could also be checked by implementing something similar to a style checker. It could also check if some methods that are supposed to be used (e.g. min/max) are being used. I guess the author is correct in that automatic grading is not perfect and it's never going to be as good as talking with someone more experienced... but it can go pretty far. Having corrected programming assignments as a teacher assistant myself, I have to say that it can be a really tough job and an automatic grading system may give you more help. When I corrected an assignment, and there were a lot of issues with it, I would point out the most important ones. But an exhaustive list is really tough because there is time pressure. Also, I think it could be too demotivating for the student if he gets a list of 30+ issues from the corrector, I'd rather have him acknowledge the 3 most important ones.