Adding analyzer feedback for karls language concept exercise

[manumafe98]

pull request

closes #2678

To be consistent with lasagna design.md, I made a couple of changes, so instead of using a loop make the user reuse code seem better for me.

Reviewer Resources:

Track Policies

[manumafe98]

I have also a couple of questions:

• maybe the method called isEmpty is literally giving the solution to the student, maybe we should rename it?
• Also seeing the hints file, and checking other files we are using documentation of different versions on java, we don't have a standard, I was thinking that we could maybe create a variable and assign it to the latest version, so the documentation that the student has is always updated? I'm open to ideas

[manumafe98]

If we 100% want to make for-loops a prerequisite we could replace the last method isExciting that currently for me seems pointless for something like this

    public <T> String isInstanceOf(List<T> list) {
        for (T element : list) {
            if (element instanceof Integer) {
                return "Integer";
            }
        }
        return "String";
    }

And introduce the concept instanceof

[sanderploegsma]

I think these hints may give away a bit too much. Based on the documentation I'd say they could be just a little bit more cryptic. For example, instead of

Try using the isEmpty() method.

it might say

One of the methods on the List type can be used to check if it is empty.

Same for the other hints.

[manumafe98]

Done!

[sanderploegsma]

Also seeing the hints file, and checking other files we are using documentation of different versions on java, we don't have a standard, I was thinking that we could maybe create a variable and assign it to the latest version, so the documentation that the student has is always updated? I'm open to ideas

How would that work exactly? AFAIK we can't define variables in Markdown files.

[sanderploegsma]

If we 100% want to make for-loops a prerequisite we could replace the last method isExciting that currently for me seems pointless for something like this

    public <T> String isInstanceOf(List<T> list) {
        for (T element : list) {
            if (element instanceof Integer) {
                return "Integer";
            }
        }
        return "String";
    }

And introduce the concept instanceof

Nah I think removing the for-loops prerequisite is the way to go here, the concept is really not needed for this exercise. Also based on the community solutions almost nobody uses a loop for the last task.

[manumafe98]

How would that work exactly? AFAIK we can't define variables in Markdown files.

Yeah, I thought that the variables accept plain text, but it seems that they only accept URLs. However, I still think we should find a way to handle this, because currently, we have a ton of documentation for different Java versions – 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, etc. Perhaps a policy to only add documentation for the latest current version, but that wouldn't eliminate the need to update the older ones at some point.

[sanderploegsma]

How would that work exactly? AFAIK we can't define variables in Markdown files.

Yeah, I thought that the variables accept plain text, but it seems that they only accept URLs. However, I still think we should find a way to handle this, because currently, we have a ton of documentation for different Java versions – 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, etc. Perhaps a policy to only add documentation for the latest current version, but that wouldn't eliminate the need to update the older ones at some point.

Can you add a new issue to discuss this?

[manumafe98]

Can you add a new issue to discuss this?

Sure