Re:The Computational Universe Pseudocode Reference [pdf]
by jpurnell on Sunday August 28, 2022 @04:09PM
(#32631619)
Fair, but if you're teaching an entry-level undergraduate CS course, you have to to start somewhere, right? Giving them a set of best practices and a clear syntax does that. And then, as students progress, they can be as creative as you suggest.
1. Pseudocode should be typeable in an email.
2. You should be able to write pseudocode on a whiteboard without worrying about syntax.
3. Pseudocode should be loose enough that it suggests a domain-specific language that it might inspire.
4. If your pseudocode requires a mechanism for comments, you’ve lost the plot. In their example, they comment ‘v1’ as ‘variable holding candidate 1’s tally’. Then name it that! ‘tally_can1’ would be much better.