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Question

In any coding assignment or task at a higher educational level (University/College), would it be acceptable to use less coding and list modules or libraries that may not be provided?

For example, a class assignment was posted on a Learning Management System: Quercus did not have a rubric or any kind of criteria listed.

Would less coding, and more usage of functions built-in be suitable? Sci-kit learn instead of generating several lines of algorithms when the library has a very useable version in less than three lines?

There are several ways to end with the same answer.

Answer 1

It depends on the assignment. If it says do not use the libraries there is a learning outcome for it. For example, by not using kNN algorithm implemented in scikit-learn and implementing it, you will understand how the algorithm works and you think about mechanics behind the scene.

But generally, you are allowed to use any library that makes your job easier to solve the problem. However it is true for the assignments or prototypes, in the production environment efficiency of code also matters. So, the minimum complexity, a clean code, and minimum number of libraries are desired to reduce the overhead and save the memory and space, and in addition make our project maintainable.