Separate hint from solution

[mertensu]

Currently, if you want to provide students with the correct answer of a question, you have to put it in 'hint'. But by doing so, students don't get the chance to solve the question on their own at a second trial. Maybe providing another option besides 'hint' such as 'solution' which could be shown by entering say show() would be nice. In such a case, hints would stay hints and students could continue trying after having read the hints.

[ncarchedi]

I agree that we should offer a show() function to the user. It shouldn't be hard to implement, but I won't have time to work on this until next week at the earliest.

[ncarchedi]

@mertensu We'll try to get to this sometime this week. Putting it on my todo list.

[ncarchedi]

I started on this last night, but immediately hit a decision point. Since we would be showing the solution to the user (but allowing them to still type it in themselves) I guess we should count the show()s in the background like we do with skip()s. This comes into play in, for example, our Coursera courses, where if a student skip()s more than one question in a lesson, he doesn't receive credit for that lesson. I think the same treatment would have to apply here.

It wouldn't be too hard to wire things this way, but I'd also have to change the instructions for the swirl programming assignments on Coursera so that students know the same treatment applies to both skip() and show(). What does everyone think?

[WilCrofter]

It seems reasonable to me that show() should count as a skip(). I believe, when skip() was first implemented, we did in fact show the correct answer before evaluating it. We stopped displaying the correct answer later on, in response to a criticism. At least that's the way I remember it.

[ncarchedi]

@WilCrofter skip() does display the correct answer before advancing.

[WilCrofter]

I stand corrected.