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From: clines@delete_this.airmail.net (Kevin Cline)
Subject: Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????
Date: 1997/04/25
Message-ID: <336a230b.6437100@news.airmail.net>#1/1
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References: <335bdd1b.5485893@news> <dewar.861678652@merv>
 <5jju5g$18s8@newssvr01-int.news.prodigy.com> <dewar.861851855@merv>
Organization: INTERNET AMERICA
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-04-25T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


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.