Comments on assignment due week 5, Nov 8: sorted_string and sorted_list

In sorted_string, many students wrote a loop to copy the characters c
in string s to list l:

 l = []
 for c in s:
   l.append(c)

This works, but it is easier to just convert the type: l = list(s)

Likewise, in sorted_list, many students wrote a loop to copy list l1 to list l2.
Any of these alternatives requires less code:

 l2 = list(l1)

 l2 = l1[:]

 l2 = copy(l1) # after from copy import copy

In Python, you usually don't need to write a loop to do simple
operations on collections.

Some students printed the string (or list) in the function body of
sorted_string (or sorted_list).  The problem statement specified that
the module (not the function) should print the strings (lists).  In
general, library functions that transform data should not print nor do
any other input/output - that should be left to the caller.