From: clines@delete_this.airmail.net (Kevin Cline)
Subject: Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????
Date: 1997/04/25
Date: 1997-04-25T00:00:00+00:00 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <336a230b.6437100@news.airmail.net> (raw)
In-Reply-To: dewar.861851855@merv
dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
> A very common phenomenon, that was around long before the
>net and newsgroups, since the same thing happens when you ask e.g.
>teaching assistants, is that students manage to turn in homework assignments
>that work without ever having learned the foggiest idea about how programs
>work. They do this by writing some gross approximation, and then asking
>lots of questions. People give them helpful hints ("you should initialize
>this variable, you should do the multiplicatoin first ... etc") and they
>manage to get the program working by assembling this advice.
Shortly after I left CMU in 1981 they started requiring that all engineering
and science majors pass a practical final exam in programming. They were
put in front of a terminal, given a specification, and allowed a few hours to
produce a working program. I don't know if that practice continues today.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~1997-04-25 0:00 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 39+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
1997-04-21 0:00 STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!?????? mrbunny
1997-04-21 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-22 0:00 ` mrbunny
1997-04-23 0:00 ` Matthew Givens
1997-04-23 0:00 ` Samuel A. Mize
1997-04-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-26 0:00 ` Michael Feldman
1997-04-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-25 0:00 ` Kevin Cline [this message]
1997-04-25 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-28 0:00 ` Matthew Givens
1997-04-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-26 0:00 ` Daniel P Hudson
1997-04-26 0:00 ` mrbunny
1997-04-27 0:00 ` Dale Stanbrough
1997-04-30 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-26 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-27 0:00 ` Daniel P Hudson
1997-04-28 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-30 0:00 ` Daniel P Hudson
1997-04-30 0:00 ` John M. Mills
1997-05-01 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-05-03 0:00 ` Daniel P Hudson
1997-05-04 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-30 0:00 ` Daniel P Hudson
1997-04-28 0:00 ` John M. Mills
1997-04-30 0:00 ` Daniel P Hudson
1997-04-29 0:00 ` Larry Kilgallen
1997-04-21 0:00 ` Students, Welcome!, was " Tom Moran
1997-04-23 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-26 0:00 ` Michael Feldman
1997-04-26 0:00 ` Michael Feldman
1997-04-22 0:00 ` Jerry Petrey
1997-04-22 0:00 ` John M. Mills
1997-04-25 0:00 ` Kevin Cline
1997-04-26 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-25 0:00 ` mrbunny
[not found] ` <01bc52a3$c91b7ce0$28f982c1@xhv46.dial.pipex.com>
1997-04-26 0:00 ` Robert Dewar
1997-04-28 0:00 ` mrbunny
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