Re: Any research putting c above ada?

[Steve Jones - JON <jon@hpodid2.eurocontrol.fr>]

ray@netcom.com (Ray Fischer) writes:

[snip]
> 
> Developing a program with a really crappy user interface and then
> telling the user that they should have read the manual when the
> inevitable problems arise is a less than compelling excuse.

If a CS student doesn't get into the habit of reading manuals he
will be of no use when he gets into the real world.

"Oh know I didn't read the specs I just wrote it how I thought it
 should work" -- And yes I have seen this

Currently I am RTFMing through a stack of documents, if I don't do this
nobody will be able to use the service I am about to write. If I was
writting a quick hack to display some data to the user as a proof of
concept then not reading all of the spec is fine, but in this case the
student was handing in an important piece of work, the risk assesment
here is that it is their job to hand the assignment in correctly.
Just hitting the "Send" button or whatever and expecting everything
to be provided on a plate _without_ checking its side-effects is
dangerous and stupid.

> 
> >  In his view, he was paying us money,
> >and he shouldn't have to read _anything_ that wasn't in the
> >printed handouts.  It was a very upsetting meeting.
> 
> You're more wrong than was he.  That a submission would delete a
> previous submission without warning is inexcusable.  That such
> dangerous behavior was not pointed out is similarly inexcusable.

My first question was actually "Why didn't the student submit it
in _one_ go".  And the answer is "because he didn't RTFM".  Had
he done that there would be no problem.

> 
> >Some students are rock solid *certain* that it *isn't* their
> >responsiblity.
> 
> They didn't write the program.  He _did_ submit both parts of the
> assignment.  That fulfilled his obligation.  YOU did not choose to 
> receive it.

He failed to read the instructions.  If it had been an exam paper and
at the top it said "read the provided document for instructions" and the
student had failed to do that, and thus got no marks because the instructions
said "all answers to be written in Hex" would you still feel it was not
his fault ?  He was directed towards a manual, he failed to read the
instructions, thus painful though it is a lesson has been learnt.

The first commandment: RTFM.

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