Why is there no hint given in hidden test cases?

Question

Really, doesn't make sense for me, I would never blame a dev *ey, you've made something wrong, I've found a bug, but I won't tell you what* Does anybody know the reason for that? I can understand, if no concrete data is given, but at least the scenario should be provided from my point of view.

Answer 1

Sandra Meyer This is a fair question.

Generally speaking, I believe guessing through the possible test cases are part of the logical challenge.

This resembles real life development experiences. Often times a developer might implement a function to take in arguments for a given scenario, perform some happy path handling of that input, then return some value or complete some action. All is good until some unexpected inputs are received and things don't behave as expected.

It's quite common for new developers to overlook the edge case scenarios that might come up eventually. This becomes less of a challenge for experienced developers.

Perhaps, the intent of not revealing those tricky edge cases is to help train the intangible skill for anticipating all possible scenarios.

The main clue in code challenges is that there are tests that do fail. This forces the developer to dig deep to contemplate the gap in their logic.

To reveal the edge cases at this point would be close to revealing the solution.

Answer 2

Competitive programming (codecoach) in a nutshell ?!

Answer 3

Hi David,

I know and understand that problem solving skills are part of a developer's path, but this is not a real life example, since there is nothing to view - no output, nothing to debug, missing or bad requirement, just nothing. In real life we have most of these.

Regarding this Q&A section I don't have the impression it is helpful to have nothing as learner. Especially for the absolute beginners it is absolutely not! It would be much more helpful to read a hint like *take care of data types*.

Answer 4

This does not answer my question. Btw. some of the tasks are not described very exact, but has nothing to do with my question.

Answer 5

It shows your output and that is enough imo. There is no need to reveal all test cases if the requirements have been well described beforehand. It tests your ability to turn requirement details to code.

Answer 6

Sandra Meyer In that case the problem is with the description. Revealing all test cases when the description is unclear is pointless. The developer will simply find a way to satisfy all tests without understanding the context of the problem. This might be a good thing in real life development but I don't consider it a good idea for beginners doing this for learning sake.

Answer 7

Sandra Meyer I agree. Abstract descriptions are a good idea.

Answer 8

For ypur betterment and make you realistic

Answer 9

For an algorithm(steps in solving the problem ) to be correct, it must produce the same output for any given input.
If all test cases were shown it will simply make us write the code with respect to the inputs shown not considering other inputs.

Answer 10

Them? Did you read my question?

Answer 11

For what? Has - as I wrote - nothing to do with my question!

Answer 12

Unfortunately some descriptions are just wrong or incomplete. And the output is not shown for all test cases, what's basically the problem.

Answer 13

Ore that's why it's prefer an abstract description of the problem tested with that test case (e.g. "combinations of many items", "large values add input"). Obviously it's not a good solution to show nothing, since many code coaches are solved by copy & pasting the solutions from Q&A, where the same test cases are asked for again and again...

Answer 14

If the test cases were to be unlocked, people could just cheat and make output based on the input, but not much coding.

Answer 15

I agree with the poster. IF the instructions are clear this makes sense. BUT I have had several challenges where I met all the conditions in the instructions and fail a hidden test... how are you supposed to fix that? We are learning things here - so we do not know every bit of syntax and little tidbit that it could be without something to guide us there... In real life it does what it is supposed to, there is nothing visibly wrong. This does not help me debug ( which I don't mind IF I am not meeting a condition I know about!), it just pisses me off. If you have test cases they either need to be clearly noted in the instructions or some hint given somewhere. While I agree this slows down cheating, all people have to do is google the code and use that instead. It is just making it harder for those of us trying to learn. You need to have an idea of what to look for before you can hope to find it!

Answer 16

I tried two codes both do the same work but somehow my first code can't pass hidden case 3, but the second one did... Do I not allowed to know the reason.. I don't even know about the bug how can i fix it.