Saving topic as null prevents the topic from being loaded

[averageandyyy]

The program will save flashcards without topics with a null string value in the save file data as seen. However, that prevents users from creating flashcards with topics pertaining to that topic, which can be thing if we consider that it is possible for CS students learning about null touse the program. Such an exclusion is not specified in the guides.

[soc-se-bot]

Team's Response

I can understand the concern, although I may not understand when null is exactly going to be a topic of study at the moment. But I can see this as a scope problem due to the problem of limiting the possible inputs in the topics field

Items for the Tester to Verify

:question: Issue response

Team chose [response.NotInScope]

• [x] I disagree

Reason for disagreement: Dear Development Team,

Thank you for the response but I would like to dispute the team's response of NotInScope on the basis of the effort required, see the attached screenshot below. While I do agree that the topic of study might be too niche and not immediately pertinent to the functionality of the product, I argue that the effort needed to address this is trivial. In my opinion, a simple and straightforward way to circumvent this problem would have been to leave the topic field in the save file blank, which was actually what would happen if a new flashcard, without a topic was created. The null string value was only introduced only during the saving process invoked during commands such as quit. If the program remained functional and performed as expected when the topic field was blank before any saving or writing of null was done, it should still remain functional if it remained empty across different program uses/instances. Because the fix for it is trivial, I disagree with the response of NotInScope referencing the course website as proof of this.

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