From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: * X-Spam-Status: No, score=1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MSGID_RANDY autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3e08c98d7ce85399 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Robert Dewar Subject: Re: Kindness Date: 1999/09/05 Message-ID: <7qsqnm$8u9$1@nnrp1.deja.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 521201387 References: <37CC6844.AB898EEE@rational.com> <1999Sep2.074353.1@eisner> <7qn419$cj4$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <37D01A39.F05FF3F4@res.raytheon.com> X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x33.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 166.72.70.239 Organization: Deja.com - Share what you know. Learn what you don't. X-Article-Creation-Date: Sun Sep 05 04:14:51 1999 GMT X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDrobert_dewar Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.04 [en] (OS/2; I) Date: 1999-09-05T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <37D01A39.F05FF3F4@res.raytheon.com>, Andy Askey wrote: > I haven't followed all the posts in this thread, but I just can't help > but put in my opinion here. > > Suppose the poster was a student attempting to get the answer to some > assigned question. So what? What is the difference if a student reads > the answer in a book, a man page, or from a newsgroup? The goal of the > student (and the teacher, I hope) is that the student learns from the > homework. One thing I find lacking in the education system of today is > that it does not prepare a graduate for the working world. Once a > student becomes a member of some Software Engineering department, he/she > will loose points for wasting time figuring out something that is > available by questioning an experience coworker. Part of the > educational process should be to teach how to complete a task in the > most efficient manner. No one ever got a promoting rediscovering > something that is common knowledge through the industry. But plenty > succeed by applying the knowledge of others to develop new ideas. Andy, reread the thread, I think you will find that people basically agree with you. It is fine if you have a problem to ask for help, it is not fine to ask someone else to do your work for you, and then claim it as your own. In fact when I teach CS courses, I explain at the start that it is just fine to borrow code from anywhere, under any circumstances *PROVIDING THAT* proper credit is given, and I note that if the top of your assignment says "this was written entirely by so-and-so who helped me out", that this is not cheating, but you won't get much credit. The one and ONLY offence is plagiarism, which is copying without attribution. This is not acceptable even when you have a "real" job. If a coworker writes a chunk of code for you, then that coworker should get proper credit. In fact the best thing to do when a student asks for help, especially if the student makes it clear that he understands that this is what is reasonable to ask for, is to point the student in the right direction to learn. Remember that when a professor gives out an assignment in a CS course, the assignment is NOT to turn in a program that does XYZ, it is to *learn* how to write a program that does XYZ, and I think we all understand that doing things yourself is an essential part of learning. Would you hire someone who had never written a program, but had instead got someone on CLA to write all their programs for them? I doubt it, because while you may be able to persuade someone to write a simple program for you, you don't see people posting here the specs for a complex project and expecting people to do it for them. As for the net being different from books, it is not. If what you do is to point people to appropriate net resources, that's just fine, and we often try to do that. But if you do someone's work for them, that's not at all equivalent to a book! I think competent students understand the difference without any difficulty. Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Share what you know. Learn what you don't.