STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[mrbunny]

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First, many thanks to those who responded positively to my request for
information.

Having posted a request to assist my  computer studies (See simple
student problem). I have been e-mailed to tell me that I have made an
"inconsiderate mistake" and that if this news group was open to
students there would be many thousands of postings every day, making
the newsgroup inoperable. I have many objections to this argument, as
follows:

If paedophiles and sado-masochists can have free access to their
special interest groups why can I not have the same equality?

If I was a post-graduate student or a final year student working on
leading edge Ada applications nobody would object to my postings
because they would be interesting. Is the objection therefore really
about wanting to avoid "casual" questions? If so the message was
clearly marked simple student problem so it could be avoided by those
not interested. 

Would students post in many thousands of messages a day? I doubt the
Ada student population is big enough! It seems that not many colleges
use Ada as a teaching language. At TVU we only study it in the first
year, so I would guess that only a small percentage of computer
students have an interest in Ada. Until I mentioned the group to my
class-mates none of them knew of it�s existence, and neither did the
tutor. If that is the case in other colleges then the number of
potential posters dwindles drastically. Not all Ada students go on to
become Ada professionals but I would imagine that Ada professionals
have over the years accumulated in numbers to the point where the
population of Ada professionals probably far outweighs the population
of Ada students. Therefore if the quantity of messages posted to the
newsgroup is reflective of the entire population of Ada professionals,
it would need a vast international army of voracious Ada students to
post many thousands of messages a day. Where are they?

I see a lot on the Ada web sites concerning the demise of Ada and
attempts to promote the greater use of Ada. If the Ada community is
serious about this then they are shooting themselves in the foot by
banning students from the news group. I study part time attending
college one day a week. A lot is crammed into the day and the
opportunities for access to specific tutors is extremely limited. As
we travel from distant places none of my class mates are on hand to
discuss problems outside of college. If I find my current text books
inadequate, the supply of college books is so short that I must
reserve a book two weeks in advance! The local library also requires
me to order books because they consider Ada too obscure to warrant
stocking text books. New text books are prohibitively expensive.
Having access to the newsgroup for the OCASSIONAL problem would be
extremely helpful.

Am I right in my understanding that most of the academic newsgroups
are on servers sponsored by universities? It seems a bitter irony
then, that those organisations tasked with creating the new
professionals should wish to deny them access to a very valuable
resource. Does familiarity breed contempt?

If all that I have said is wrong, and that students really would be a
nuisance, then why can the problem not be solved by creating an Ada
student�s newsgroup. If there are resources to create newsgroups about
sadism and paedophilia then I am very angry that students cannot have
an equal share of the webs resources. 

The spirit of the web is one of equality and freedom, unless it seems,
you are a student!

Mark.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Mark is obviously new to newsgroups, since he has so many misconceptions.
Sometimes it seems like more and more such people are around.

Anyway, the misconceptions should be set right for the benefit of
other neophyte readers of CLA :-)

<<Would students post in many thousands of messages a day? I doubt the           
Ada student population is big enough! It seems that not many colleges          
>>

There are hundreds of schools teaching Ada (go check www.adahome.com for
info), to thousands of students. if all of them posted questions about
all their assignments, simple arithmetic shows that 99% of the messages
on CLA would be from students. An analogy would be in a big lecture if
students never read anything, and each asked dozens of qustions like
"I couldn't be bothered to read about arrays, how do they work?" As
in a lecture, you need to put in some work of your own (e.g. visit
www.adahome.com and run one of the online tutorials created by hard
work of some individuals contributing their time).

<<Am I right in my understanding that most of the academic newsgroups
are on servers sponsored by universities? It seems a bitter irony
then, that those organisations tasked with creating the new
professionals should wish to deny them access to a very valuable
resource. Does familiarity breed contempt?

>>

No, your understanding is completely wrong, the newsgroups are not
"academic" nwsgroups and have nothing whatever to do with universities.
The newsgroup feeds are of course available to any user of the net, including
universities, but they have no special status.

<<If all that I have said is wrong, and that students really would be a
nuisance, then why can the problem not be solved by creating an Ada
studentM-^Rs newsgroup. If there are resources to create newsgroups about
sadism and paedophilia then I am very angry that students cannot have
an equal share of the webs resources.

>>

Spend less energy being angry, and more learning how things work. Anyone
can form an alt newsgroup (which is where the kind of newsgroups you are
talking about live). No one needs to have any authority of any kind to
do this. If you think such a newsgroup will be useful (and will attrct 
people who can help), learn how to send out the message that creates a new
alt group, and do it! Altenratively, organize a net vote to form a subgroup
of comp.lang.ada.

<<The spirit of the web is one of equality and freedom, unless it seems,
you are a student!
>>

This has nothing to do with the Web, we are talking newsgroups here. You 
need to learn much more about what is going on. Yes, the net is an
environment of equality and freedom, but with equality and freedom go
responsibility and good citizenship and the need to have educated
citizens -- just like any democracy, the smooth operation of society
depends on this!

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[mrbunny]

On 21 Apr 1997 23:18:21 -0400, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
wrote:


>
>There are hundreds of schools teaching Ada (go check www.adahome.com for
>info), to thousands of students. if all of them posted questions about
>all their assignments, simple arithmetic shows that 99% of the messages
>on CLA would be from students. An analogy would be in a big lecture if
>students never read anything, and each asked dozens of qustions like
>"I couldn't be bothered to read about arrays, how do they work?" As
>in a lecture, you need to put in some work of your own (e.g. visit
>www.adahome.com and run one of the online tutorials created by hard
>work of some individuals contributing their time).
>
This paragraph makes some very broad assumptions.

One is that it assumes all students will not do their own research.
Yes there are some who will always take the easy way out, but the
reality is that these are a small minority. Students know that if they
are to have any future in their subject they must do their own
research and fully comprehend their subject, if only because once or
twice a year they will sit exams in which the only person to help them
will be themselves. 

Another assumption is that if students have a problem they will
immediately post a request for help in the Ada newsgroup, and not
consider other resources. If that were the case the newsgroup would
have by now seen a lot more studnet requests.

Finally it assumes that students have easy access to the equipment and
facilities to enable them to post to newsgroups. My experience is that
even computer students do not automatically have these facilities.
Whilst colleges offer the use of the Internet, e-mail is not normally
part of the available facilities as colleges are reluctant to provide
the uncontrolled use of their e-mail address. Otherwise anyone could
give the impression they were posting with the authority and status of
the college. The small minority of students in my class possess home
computers, simply because as students they cannot afford them, let
alone pay the cost of Internet subscription.

I find it difficult to agree that there is a plague of lazy students
just waiting to overload the Ada newsgroup if they are given half a
chance. 

I must also distance myself from these imaginary students who are
saying  "I couldn't be bothered to read about arrays, how do they
work?" My lowest assignment mark is 80% my maximum 100%, that 
does not come from not being bothered.

Mark.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Matthew Givens]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>
>This has nothing to do with the Web, we are talking newsgroups here. You 

>need to learn much more about what is going on. Yes, the net is an
>environment of equality and freedom, but with equality and freedom go
>responsibility and good citizenship and the need to have educated
>citizens -- just like any democracy, the smooth operation of society
>depends on this!

I came in late on this one, Robert, but it seems to me you don't want 
students posting in this Newsgroup.  IMHO, this isn't the correct 
attitude.  the Newsgroup should be open to those who have questions about 
things they don't understand.  I mean, that's the point, right?  Help 
folks solve problems?

Student or professional, a problem is a problem.  And, although I'm sure 
that nobody here would do their homework for them, problems for students 
can be particularly vexing.  Especially when it's their first language.

-
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you ever tried. 
<< Iceman >>

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Matthew said

<<I came in late on this one, Robert, but it seems to me you don't want
students posting in this Newsgroup.  IMHO, this isn't the correct
attitude.  the Newsgroup should be open to those who have questions about
things they don't understand.  I mean, that's the point, right?  Help
folks solve problems?

Student or professional, a problem is a problem.  And, although I'm sure
that nobody here would do their homework for them, problems for students
can be particularly vexing.  Especially when it's their first language.>>

On the contrary, I welcome students questions -- *if* they do their
homework before asking -- in particular, as with all newsgroups, the
first place to send students off to is the FAQ -- especially since ours
(the home page at www.adahome.com) is so well done. The online tutorials
are often tremendously helpful too -- I advise all my students to try
running these.

<<Student or professional, a problem is a problem>>

No, that's not quite true. And that's precisely the disctinction that I
try to emphasize to people. If a profession posts a question saying
"I need to glub a zork", then we help him or her figure out how to
glub a zork, since that is the issue.

But it a student says "I need to glub a zork [for an assignment]", the
point of the assignment is not to glub a zork, it is for the student to
FIGURE OUT HOW to glub a zork. It is this process of figuring out for
yourself that is absolutely crucial to the learning process when it comes
to programming.

One of the things that is hard to learn if you teach programming (I have
been learning this for 30 years), is that when a student asks a question
about their program -- the *easy* thing to do, is just to answer the
question -- but if you do that, then you can easily short circuit the
assignment. 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.

This certainly is not cheating, but it does short change the students,
and the trouble with the newsgroups and the net is that now this effect
can be greatly multiplied. I often see people trying to be helpful to
students, but they don't have the experience to do it the "right" way.

That's because they don't understand the distinction ("a problem is a 
problem") between problem solving in a professional environment and
students learning.

So I would encourage everyone who wants to help students to be careful
to bear this distinction in mind, and try to help them sove the real
problem, which is learning how to figure out the solution for
themselves, rather than solving the problem directly.

By the way, I communicate with many students who post to CLA, and most
often, these dialogs are very constructive, and students appreciate being
pointed in helpful directions (books, tutorials, the home page etc).
Occasionally, someone, like mrbunny, reacts very negatively, but perhaps
even in that case, eventually he will go off to www.adahome.com, run
the online tutorials etc, and find that useful!

I quite understand that students can get frustrated. When a student comes
to me with a program that does not work, and I refuse to fix it from them,
they are often angry, and I quite see how, if you like to be helpful, it
is very tempting to fix the problem for them, and the student goes away
feeling you have been terribly helpful, and they are thankful for it, but
you have not really helped them in such a situation.

So, always think about how to help people learn, not about how to help
people get their program working -- the two are not quite the same.

Robert Dewar

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Kevin Cline]

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. 

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

iKevin said

<<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.>>

This is still done today, and it is an excellent idea, but very few places
do this.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Matthew Givens]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>
>Matthew said
>
><<Student or professional, a problem is a problem>>
>
>No, that's not quite true. And that's precisely the disctinction that I
>try to emphasize to people. If a profession posts a question saying
>"I need to glub a zork", then we help him or her figure out how to
>glub a zork, since that is the issue.
>
>But it a student says "I need to glub a zork [for an assignment]", the
>point of the assignment is not to glub a zork, it is for the student to
>FIGURE OUT HOW to glub a zork. It is this process of figuring out for
>yourself that is absolutely crucial to the learning process when it 
comes
>to programming.

I think that's the point of contention, here.  Certainly you don't give 
someone the answer to the assignment.  But if the question is something 
like "I don't understand inheritance, can anyone help?", then we have a 
different situation on our hands.  And forbidding the students from 
accessing the group where the knowledgable people congregate isn't the 
answer.  Instead of banning all students, ban those who repeatedly misuse 
the privilege.

>One of the things that is hard to learn if you teach programming (I 
have
>been learning this for 30 years), is that when a student asks a 
question
>about their program -- the *easy* thing to do, is just to answer the
>question -- but if you do that, then you can easily short circuit the
>assignment. 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.
>
>This certainly is not cheating, but it does short change the students,
>and the trouble with the newsgroups and the net is that now this effect
>can be greatly multiplied. I often see people trying to be helpful to
>students, but they don't have the experience to do it the "right" way.
>
>That's because they don't understand the distinction ("a problem is a 
>problem") between problem solving in a professional environment and
>students learning.

I have worked as a programmer since I graduated in 1987.  I have spent 
some time teaching programming (1 year full time, 5 years part time), and 
understand the distinction.  But each question should be evaluated 
separately.  By condemning all student, you close a valuable resource 
away from the ones who will use it wisely.

>
>So, always think about how to help people learn, not about how to help
>people get their program working -- the two are not quite the same.

Of course it isn't.  But if you don't allow ANY students in the 
newsgroups, where the experienced programmers regularly visit, then 
you're not helping anybody do anything.


-
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you ever tried. 
<< Iceman >>

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Matthew said

<<I think that's the point of contention, here.  Certainly you don't give
someone the answer to the assignment.  But if the question is something
like "I don't understand inheritance, can anyone help?", then we have a
different situation on our hands.  And forbidding the students from
accessing the group where the knowledgable people congregate isn't the
answer.  Instead of banning all students, ban those who repeatedly misuse
the privilege.>>

Let me say once again, no one proposed banning all students, no such
action is possible, and it is not desirable to ban anyone, we don't
even have a mechanism for banning people who repeatedly abuse the
newsgroup, and I think that's just fine. Yes, occasaionlly we get
some noise, but everyone (I assume) knows how to use kill lists and
can do the banning for themselves.

You are the only person so far to suggest banning anyone at all, and I 
disagree with the sentiment -- I prefer CLA to be kept as an unmoderated
group.

Robert

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Samuel A. Mize]

Matthew Givens wrote:
> 
> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
> >
> >This has nothing to do with the Web, we are talking newsgroups here. You
> 
> >need to learn much more about what is going on. Yes, the net is an
> >environment of equality and freedom, but with equality and freedom go
> >responsibility and good citizenship and the need to have educated
> >citizens -- just like any democracy, the smooth operation of society
> >depends on this!
> 
> I came in late on this one, Robert, but it seems to me you don't want
> students posting in this Newsgroup.  IMHO, this isn't the correct
> attitude.  the Newsgroup should be open to those who have questions about
> things they don't understand.  I mean, that's the point, right?  Help
> folks solve problems?


What Mr. Dewar said, which I agree with, is that if all students
post all their basic questions, the newsgroup will be flooded
out.  He suggests that students should (1) Use the other online
information sources, like the tutorials at www.adahome.com, and
(2) get their basic information from their texts and teachers,
instead of asking the entire planet "how do arrays work?"

However, others have taken a strong anti-student-on-cla attitude
(maybe it was Mr. Dewar in another post, I don't know).  We need
to find a balance, and maybe we need to generate a new group for
questions and answers.

I haven't seen anyone respond angrily to a student asking for
pointers to online resources.  often see students get good
results from asking for basic understanding about a topic
(either explanations or pointers to other resources), but they
sometimes get people carping at them too.

I do feel it would help to have a pointer posted weekly to
www.adahome.com, so when a neophyte hits the group for the first
time it's almost sure to be visible.  It would be good if this
included some information about how to get help via the net
and/or on cla without rousing some folks' ire.  It would be
great if everyone coming into newsgroups for the first time
knew how they work, but that generally comes with experience.

(Owner of www.adahome.com: if you want me to do a weekly
pointer, contact me at my personal account: smize@imagin.net.
In a volunteer organization, complaining = volunteering.)

Sam Mize

-- Samuel Mize           (817) 619-8622               "Team Ada"
-- Hughes Training Inc.  PO Box 6171 m/s 400, Arlington TX 76005

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

<<However, others have taken a strong anti-student-on-cla attitude
(maybe it was Mr. Dewar in another post, I don't know).  We need
to find a balance, and maybe we need to generate a new group for
questions and answers.>>

I certainly have no objections to a different group for beginnners
questions, an analogy is the use of teaching assistants and recitations
in conventional lectures. Still it wories me a bit, because I would
hate to see a situation where we get to feel that no questions are
appropriate on CLA. My feeling is that carefully asked questions,
where the student has done a bit of homework, and thought through
things, are valuable on CLA itself, and we see those all the time.

Few of the really knowledgable people on CLA are likely to spend time
reading a student group, so the danger is that there is a lack of
informed expertise in such a group, and you begin to get a lot of
false information. On CLA itself, we do occasionally get people trying
to be helpful and making entirely wrong statements, but they quickly
get corrected.

An analogy here again is in conventional lectures. I always welcome
questions in my lectures if I think they are useful (indeed sometimes
students criticize me for accepting too many questions, and not sticking
to the book :-) However, if someone asks a question that shows that they
clearly have not read the text book, that annoys other students, and it
is not appropriate to spend class time answering such questions.

So, speaking for myself, I think we should go out of our way to welcome
students who do their homework, and ask useful and well thought out
questions and not banish them to a backwater group. Students who have
not done their homework are better served by pointing them in the directions
where they can help themselves rather than sending them off to another
group.

Note that the issue is not about simplicity or complexity of questions,
sometimes, even are studying carefully, you cannot understand something
simple, but in that case your question should at least show that 
environment of attempted understanding. It is when people start deciding
that it is easier to ask newsgroup quesions than to study that I question
the apppropriateness, just as I would question the appropriateness of
someone deciding it is easier to ask questions in class than to read the
book.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Michael Feldman]

In article <dewar.861971618@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:

[snip]

>So, speaking for myself, I think we should go out of our way to welcome
>students who do their homework, and ask useful and well thought out
>questions and not banish them to a backwater group. Students who have
>not done their homework are better served by pointing them in the directions
>where they can help themselves rather than sending them off to another
>group.

I second Robert here, on both counts.

Students studying Ada (or anything else) in a structured college or
university course should have access to texts, teaching assistants,
the prof teaching the course, and so on. 

It's unfair of these institutions to expect the net to make up for their
unwillingness to provide proper resources to their students. It's also
unfair for students to ask folks on the net to do their homework for
them.

That said, I think we are still under some obligation to be polite in
responding to students. First of all, it's common civility. Secondly,
we'd really like them to learn and use Ada, and acting like jerks is 
not going to encourage them.

_That_ said, Robert's statement that "there seem to be a lot of people 
on the net who don't understand how it works" is true, and, in my opinion,
definitely a good sign that the net is working as it should, attracting
new folks who are feeling their way. How else are they to learn "how it
works" unless they try it?

What will they find out when they try?

The net is like the larger community - some inhabitants are friendly
and welcoming, others are impatient and off-putting. The only generalization
is that you can't generalize. None of us has a monopoly on truth, or
a monopoly on the privilege of setting the rules.

For whatever my opinion is worth, if any of you out there feel that a post
is inappropriate, PLEASE do not waste bandwidth discussing it. Write a
private note to the poster, or, better, just ignore it. If _everyone_
thinks it was inappropriate, the poster will find out soon enough - nobody
will follow it up! If someone does follow it up, well, that's life on the
net. Nobody appointed or elected me, or Robert, or any of us, to 
legislate rules. It's a wonderful, anarchic place.

(just my $0.02)

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) 
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Cooperate with those who have both know-how and integrity."      
   Fortune cookie, Wu Dynasty, Bethesda, MD, Spring 1996.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ada on the WWW: www.acm.org/sigada/education or www.adahome.com 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Daniel P Hudson]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>Mark is obviously new to newsgroups, since he has so many misconceptions.
>Sometimes it seems like more and more such people are around.

Mark? What about your own misconceptions?

>Anyway, the misconceptions should be set right for the benefit of
>other neophyte readers of CLA :-)

Setting  it right, doesn't consist of providing mis-informed 
readers with more bad information, does it?

>>Would students post in many thousands of messages a day? I doubt the           
>>Ada student population is big enough! It seems that not many colleges          

>There are hundreds of schools teaching Ada (go check www.adahome.com for
>info), to thousands of students. if all of them posted questions about
>all their assignments, simple arithmetic shows that 99% of the messages

This is by far the most illogical thing I've ever heard. If every
person on earth screamed at the top of their lungs we'd probably 
destroy the Earth too, but we both know neither of these is GOING 
to happen, therefore you're making up fictional situations to argue 
with non-fictional statements, Robert. Second, do you honestly
believe that each and every one of those schools permits usenet 
access freely, much less every student know it is acessable? Hmm.

>>on CLA would be from students. An analogy would be in a big lecture if
>>students never read anything, and each asked dozens of qustions like
>>"I couldn't be bothered to read about arrays, how do they work?" As

And this is reason enough to disallow students with legitimate 
questions, what if they had felt that way about you? I'm sure
you've asked a question inappropriately in your life.

>>in a lecture, you need to put in some work of your own (e.g. visit
>>www.adahome.com and run one of the online tutorials created by hard
>>work of some individuals contributing their time).

This may come as a surprise, Robert, but www.adahome.com isn't exactly 
the best known WWW site. They sort of have to be TOLD about it.
On top of this, many student have put in their work, thay have 
text books, albeit useless ones, but they have looked in many
cases. Obviously anyone who posts

"My teacher gave me assignment X and I'm busy so could you do this 
 for me," 
 
 should be bound, gagged, and given a taste of a cat o' nine tails, 
 but we're not specifing cheaters, but rather students who deserve 
 every chance than can get to learn something in a way which they 
 can understand. Not everyone can learn by reading a textbook, 
 some may need a logical explanation behind the answer that only 
 a user of that language can provide. Such as

 "I know there are DO and FOR loops, and I feel a DO loop is better
 to count from 1 to 100, but someone else says a FOR loop is more 
 appropriate, can anyone explain why?"

>>Am I right in my understanding that most of the academic newsgroups
>>are on servers sponsored by universities? It seems a bitter irony
>>then, that those organisations tasked with creating the new
>>professionals should wish to deny them access to a very valuable
>>resource. Does familiarity breed contempt?

>No, your understanding is completely wrong, the newsgroups are not
>"academic" newsgroups and have nothing whatever to do with universities.
>The newsgroup feeds are of course available to any user of the net, 
>including universities, but they have no special status.

Both of you are wrong. Usenet was FORMED by universities for
the free exchange of information by/from students and professors.
It then expanded to other users as the Internet became avaialble
to more than schools and milliatry operations. However, at no time
were students banned from using the service, Robert, and AFAIK,
universities are still the primary carriers/supporters of usenet
with Texas being the largest. it is Texas we can thank for helping
put AOL and P* into a mode where spamming is a little less common, 
BTW. A few years back it was out rageous, every group had a 
1-800-I-WANT-YOU message, so UT decided to filter out anything 
going to or coming from aol and P*. Needless to say, both
decided the cost of cleaning up theor act ws not the same as 
the cost for bankruptcy.

[SNIP]

I must say I am shocked. It was my understanding that you were a 
well thought of and highly intelligent person, Mr. Dewar.
However, last time I checked, improper usage of inductive logic
was not a sign of high intelligence. In fact, I beleive racism,
sexism, and homophobia are generally considered ignornat, correct?
And your "studentism," is no different.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[mrbunny]

Daniel P Hudson wrote:


>And your "studentism," is no different.

Guys! Please don't dig trenches, otherwise we will all be losers.


--An attempt to put the problem in perspective.--

If all computer students studying ada used newsgroups
for all their assignment questions the probility of them 
posting messages would be 100%

However few if any students will study Ada exclusively, 
course work is likely to include maths, other languages,
system analysis, applications, business studies, etc., 
bringing the probability of an assignment qustion being 
Ada related down to maybe 25%

Not all of a students time is spent on assignments, there
are lectures, tutorials, revision weeks, exams, inductions,
demonstrations, etc., maybe only 50% of effort is spent on
assignments, reducing the likely hood of an assingment 
question arising down to 12.5%

Of the assignment questions, not all will cause the student 
a problem. He/she will answer many of the questions from what
they have learnt. Maybe only 50% of the the assignment causes 
them a problem, reducing the probability of them needing 
assistance down to 6.25%

Of these students how many have the knowledge, equipment 
and facilities to access the newsgroup at a time when 
the help is required. Maybe only 50%. The probability 
of them posting to the newsgroup reduces to 3.125%

Of these students, how many know of the Ada newsgroup, 
again maybe only 50%, the probability of needing 
assistance is now down to 1.56%

Of these students how many would use the Ada newsgroup as a 
source of information instead of text books, tutors, class
discussions, course notes, online tutorials even. Maybe 25%?
The probability of them using the newsgroup is now .39%

If the international student population studying Ada is 
100,000 then the .39% of students wishing to post to usenet
amounts to 390 students. 

A student is at college for around 30 weeks of the year giving 210 
days in which to post to the newsgroup. This means that an average
of 1.86 postings a day will be received from students. And this 
only during term time.

I know this is a crude simulation but it does give some "shape" 
to the problem.

Mark.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Dale Stanbrough]

mrbunny@mail.zynet.co.uk writes:

"I know this is a crude simulation but it does give some "shape" 
 to the problem."


At RMIT, we have a local newsgroup devoted entirely to Ada discussions,
as well as newsgroups for each subject. These tend to capture 99% of all
Ada questions before they get out of the door (We have over 300 students
studying programming and SE using Ada, and you don't see too many posts
from rmit students on c.l.a.).

I think that local newsgroups are a much better way to handle these sort
of students requests, as the volume is a lot lower than c.l.a., and the
answers are knowingly pitched at the appropriate level for other students
to pick up on. 

Dale

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Dale said

<<I think that local newsgroups are a much better way to handle these sort
of students requests, as the volume is a lot lower than c.l.a., and the
answers are knowingly pitched at the appropriate level for other students
to pick up on.<<

At NYU, we use class mailing lists in much the same way, very
sucessfully.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

<<This is by far the most illogical thing I've ever heard. If every
  person on earth screamed at the top of their lungs we'd probably
  destroy the Earth too.>>

A good analogy, if I meet someone screaming at the top of their lungs
I will ask them to stop!

<<This may come as a surprise, Robert, but www.adahome.com isn't exactly
  the best known WWW site. They sort of have to be TOLD about it.
  On top of this, many student have put in their work, thay have
  text books, albeit useless ones, but they have looked in many
  cases>>

Actually it is easy to find this site using any of the standard
search engines (give it a try and you will see what I mean). Besides
which all students (including mrbunny) immediately get informed about
adahome as soon as they post here (by me if no one else -- I always
send this information out to anyone whom it seems it will help!)

<<And this is reason enough to disallow students with legitimate
  questions, what if they had felt that way about you? I'm sure
  you've asked a question inappropriately in your life.>>

Not at all, I absolutely encourage students with legitimate questions,
and no one is talking about disallowing anything -- this is a newsgroup.
I certaily have not proposed making CLA moderated -- I think that would
be a big mistake, since there is no enough consensus about what should
be here -- so talk of disallowing anyone or anything is arguing against
a strawman!

<<I'm sure you've asked a question inappropriately in your life.>>

ABsolutely, and when I do, I expect someone to tell me, and I
concentrate on understanding why it is inappropriate, and trying
to avoid asking inappropriate questions in the future.

<<I must say I am shocked. It was my understanding that you were a
  well thought of and highly intelligent person, Mr. Dewar.>>

Hmmm! interesting that what started out as not an entirely unreasonable
post has to deteriorate into insults -- well one of the primary rules
of the internet is not to let such attempts bother one :-)

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Daniel P Hudson]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
><<I must say I am shocked. It was my understanding that you were a
>  well thought of and highly intelligent person, Mr. Dewar.>>

>Hmmm! interesting that what started out as not an entirely unreasonable
>post has to deteriorate into insults -- well one of the primary rules
>of the internet is not to let such attempts bother one :-)

Don't patronize me. This thread was one big insult to anyone who
is, has been, or ever will be a student, Mr. Dewar. The basic premise
is students should be banned form usenet because they are stupid
and serve no purpose in the original posters eyes. I call that slightly
unfriendly, myself.

If you find the truth insulting, I'm sorry. But from what I have read
in this thread, it started out as ALL STUDENTS go away and not
ALL CHEATERS go away. I find such statements very poorly thought
out and down right unintelligent. In fact, I find it rather Nazish
if you want to know the truth. It seems you were arguing for 
this point and that your reasons were that students ask inappropriate 
questions. This may not be so, but that is what the thread has
appeared to show. As well, what makes you think a new college student
taking an Ada class, has a clue what a search engine is? I know
my college CIS labs didn't tell me what such things were. In
fact, I had to experiment just to find out the labs permitted 
internet access, and figure out what types of access it supported.

Furthermore, you make the assumption that no student is learning from
the solutions people have posted on usenet. My last Psych class
didn't seem to agree with this broad assumption. In fact, research showed
that multiple forms of stimulant were te best way to learn something.
IE, hearing and reading it, or seeing and hearing it or whatever.
It also showed that reading something in a book and talking with
someone about that subject promoted greater learning than just 
reading or just talking. I may be wrong, but typing through usenet
and chat is the closest thing we have to talking to people on the net
wihtout buying some $150+ Netphone.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Daniel said

<<Don't patronize me. This thread was one big insult to anyone who
is, has been, or ever will be a student, Mr. Dewar. The basic premise
is students should be banned form usenet because they are stupid
and serve no purpose in the original posters eyes. I call that slightly
unfriendly, myself.>>

Despite Daniel's energetic attempts to persuade people to favor such a ban,
at least for some students, the fact of the matter is that no one has
suggested banning anyone -- nore is there any mechanism to do so, nor
has anyone favored putting such a mechanism in place. So you are tilting
at windmills here I am afraid!

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Daniel P Hudson]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>Daniel said

><<Don't patronize me. This thread was one big insult to anyone who
>is, has been, or ever will be a student, Mr. Dewar. The basic premise
>is students should be banned form usenet because they are stupid
>and serve no purpose in the original posters eyes. I call that slightly
>unfriendly, myself.>>

>Despite Daniel's energetic attempts to persuade people to favor such a ban,

You must be sick. I have not tried to persuade ANYONE to favor
ANYTHING. I have stated I am shocked at some of your over 
generalizations of students.

>at least for some students, the fact of the matter is that no one has
>suggested banning anyone -- nore is there any mechanism to do so, nor

You don't think "STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!" suggests anything of the sort, 
correct? Considering a thread title is supposed to "reflect"
the content, I must disagree.

>has anyone favored putting such a mechanism in place. So you are tilting
>at windmills here I am afraid!

First, I know that it isn't possible to physically ban students from 
posting.

Second, it is possible to make the group so unattractive and vicious
they will not visit it.

The EMAIL recieve by this reader was one such attempt Mr. Dewar.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[John M. Mills]

afn03257@freenet2.afn.org (Daniel P Hudson) writes:

>dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>>Despite Daniel's energetic attempts to persuade people to favor such a ban,

>You must be sick. I have not tried to persuade ANYONE to favor
>ANYTHING.

Guess you missed the @;^/ there.  On the other hand you just earned a place
in my [very small] 'Kill' file.  Congratulations!

Hasta la vista, Mr. Hudson!

-- 
John M. Mills, Senior Research Engineer   --   john.m.mills@gtri.gatech.edu
   Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0834
        Phone contacts: 404.894.0151 (voice), 404.894.6258 (FAX)
            "Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Simulations"

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Daniel said

<<You must be sick. I have not tried to persuade ANYONE to favor
  ANYTHING. I have stated I am shocked at some of your over
  generalizations of students.>>

Perhaps you should look up "irony" in the dictionary :-)

<<You don't think "STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!" suggests anything of the sort,
  correct? Considering a thread title is supposed to "reflect"
  the content, I must disagree.>>

You must have joined us late. This thread title was coined by a student,
not by any of the egular contributors to CLA. It reflects a particular
students misunderstanding of what was being said -- in fact I think that
particular student now has a bit better understanding, but thread titles
stick around (partly so that people can follow them, or perhaps in this
case more likely, kill them)

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Daniel P Hudson]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>Daniel said

><<You must be sick. I have not tried to persuade ANYONE to favor
>  ANYTHING. I have stated I am shocked at some of your over
>  generalizations of students.>>

>Perhaps you should look up "irony" in the dictionary :-)

Yes, how silly of me, I always use IRONY in the MIDDLE of
a serious discusion, especially one that is trying to
make students feel unwanted in usenet. I also forget to put a
smiley next to my ironic statements so everyone can mistake
irony for confusion. >8-> [Sarcasm]

><<You don't think "STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!" suggests anything of the sort,
>  correct? Considering a thread title is supposed to "reflect"
>  the content, I must disagree.>>

>You must have joined us late. This thread title was coined by a student,

Nope : Basically the first message was a FOLLOW-UP to
       an E-mail he got

Mr. Bunny says he got a disturbing E-mail which says students shouldn't 
post to CLA, then says he does not believe the statements about all 
Ada students in the world flooding the group, and simple logic supports 
his claim. He then goes on to say that he thought usenet was an 
academic system, which it was originally. He also mentions that if CLA 
members DON'T want students participating they could surely MAKE a 
student Ada newsgroup. Did I miss anything?

Your follow up.

Yes, every Ada student would crush us, yadda, yadda, yadda about 
something that will never happen and is just an excause to harass the 
few students we have that DO use this group. Followed by a statement 
saying usenet has nothing to do with academics, and that Mr. bunny 
should create an alt group instead of wasting his time posting here. 
Good to go so far?

Followed by me, saying your usage of an imaginary situation of 1000's 
of Ada students posting here is a poor reason to have told Mr. Bunny he
is not welcome here in the E-mail he got [not that you mailed him], 
correcting your mis-conception about usenet and academics since it 
was academic communities that created usenet some 2-3 decades ago, 
and I don't think I commented on the ALT group remark even though 
you misunderstood his original statement which was for you, the 
people who know how to create newsgroups and don't want the students 
visiting your precious group, to creata a comp.lang.ada.4.students 
newsgroup.

Now there were other side threads going on, but they were not of 
concern in our discussion.

I'm going to return to lurking now, and you are your screwy quoting 
style can say what you want, but your post appears to argue against
STUDENTS posting to CLA, and particularly Mr. Bunny, period.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Daniel said

<<Nope : Basically the first message was a FOLLOW-UP to
       an E-mail he got

Mr. Bunny says he got a disturbing E-mail which says students shouldn't
post to CLA, then says he does not believe the statements about all
Ada students in the world flooding the group, and simple logic supports
his claim>>

No that's plain wrong, the subject line of this thread was indeed typed
into the computer by mrbunny and no one else! The "disturbing email"
that you refer to (but which you have not seen) was a message from me
that suggested that before posting questions asking for help on
assignments, it was appropriate to make an effort to find out answers
for yourself, and I pointed him to www.adahome.com among other sources.

He reacted by posting the message that gave rise to this thread -- I think
he misinterpreted what I said (I have subsequently tried to make my position
clear -- and it is one which I think most people understand -- and indeed I
have subsequently exchanged a number of messages with mrbunny and as you
may have noticed, he found this and other exchanges helpful (and posted
a message to this effect).

P.S. I suspect that the great majority of other people on this newsgroup
immediately detected the irony in my original statement. I didn't consider
a smiley appropriate, since the whole point of ironic statements is that
they are delivered as though serious, but intended to be immediately
understood as non-serious. The fact that you did not pick up on it is
of course the joke, and that does warrant a smiley :-)

P.P.S. The reason I maintain this silly subject line is so that all those
who have killed it already will not see these messages. I suspect that
is a large number of readers :-)

P.P.P.S. One cannot followup an email message, the word followup is used
in this environment to refer to replies to posted messages. The initial
message in such a thread has a subject coined by the creator of the thread,
as in this case.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Daniel P Hudson]

dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>Daniel said

><<Don't patronize me. This thread was one big insult to anyone who
>is, has been, or ever will be a student, Mr. Dewar. The basic premise
>is students should be banned form usenet because they are stupid
>and serve no purpose in the original posters eyes. I call that slightly
>unfriendly, myself.>>

>Despite Daniel's energetic attempts to persuade people to favor such a ban,

You must be sick. I have not tried to persuade ANYONE to favor
ANYTHING. I have stated I am shocked at some of your over 
generalizations of students.

>at least for some students, the fact of the matter is that no one has
>suggested banning anyone -- nore is there any mechanism to do so, nor

You don't think "STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!" suggests anything of the sort, 
correct? Considering a thread title is supposed to "reflect"
the content, I must disagree.

>has anyone favored putting such a mechanism in place. So you are tilting
>at windmills here I am afraid!

First, I know that it isn't possible to physically ban students from 
posting.

Second, it is possible to make the group so unattractive and vicious
they will not visit it.

The EMAIL recieve by this reader was one such attempt Mr. Dewar.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[John M. Mills]

afn03257@freenet2.afn.org (Daniel P Hudson) writes:

>dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>>Hmmm! interesting that what started out as not an entirely unreasonable
>>post has to deteriorate into insults

Mr. Hudson:

When I sent you e-mail noting that personal character attacks
in newsgroup postings seemed inappropriate to me, and that they rather
diminish the credence I place in the poster, rather than in the person
attacked, my e-mail bounced.

Therefore I remark here that, though I am impatient with much of the flameage
which sometimes greets naive postings in c.l.a., personal insults are
inappropriate in any newsgroup, and primariy tarnish the image of their
authors.

Now that you have net access, I suggest you read the newusers notes on
netiquette.

-- 
John M. Mills, Senior Research Engineer   --   john.m.mills@gtri.gatech.edu
   Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0834
        Phone contacts: 404.894.0151 (voice), 404.894.6258 (FAX)
            "Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Simulations"

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Daniel P Hudson]

jm59@prism.gatech.edu (John M. Mills) wrote:

>afn03257@freenet2.afn.org (Daniel P Hudson) writes:

>>dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>>>Hmmm! interesting that what started out as not an entirely unreasonable
>>>post has to deteriorate into insults

>Mr. Hudson:

>When I sent you e-mail noting that personal character attacks
>in newsgroup postings seemed inappropriate to me, and that they rather
>diminish the credence I place in the poster, rather than in the person

Frankly, I could care less how you determine my credence.

>attacked, my e-mail bounced.

Sorry, my server is on the FRITZ, and has been for some time now.

>Therefore I remark here that, though I am impatient with much of the 
>flameage which sometimes greets naive postings in c.l.a., personal 
>insults are inappropriate in any newsgroup, and primariy tarnish 
>the image of their authors.

Yet, you don't find a thread titled "STUDENTS GO AWAY" offensive 
or insultive at all? Well, to each his own I guess.

>Now that you have net access, I suggest you read the newusers notes on
>netiquette.

And you don't think this was an attempt at an insult by any means, 
either correct?  "Do as I say not as I do," seems to come to mind 
here. I'd love to make you think you accomplished something here, 
but the truth is I read news.newusers over 4 years ago. Don't worry 
though because I, unlike you, won't judge you on your attempt 
at an insult.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Larry Kilgallen]

In article <5jufaq$r5l@huron.eel.ufl.edu>, afn03257@freenet2.afn.org (Daniel P Hudson) writes:
> dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) wrote:
>><<I must say I am shocked. It was my understanding that you were a
>>  well thought of and highly intelligent person, Mr. Dewar.>>
> 
>>Hmmm! interesting that what started out as not an entirely unreasonable
>>post has to deteriorate into insults -- well one of the primary rules
>>of the internet is not to let such attempts bother one :-)
> 
> Don't patronize me. This thread was one big insult to anyone who
> is, has been, or ever will be a student, Mr. Dewar. The basic premise
> is students should be banned form usenet because they are stupid
> and serve no purpose in the original posters eyes. I call that slightly
> unfriendly, myself.

I had the advantage of being on vacation last week, so I saw this
thread all at once.  It was started by someone assuming the view of
a student, not at all by Robert Dewar.

Reading the thread all in order at once shows me nobody patronizing,
and just a few people resenting.

Larry Kilgallen

Students, Welcome!, was Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Tom Moran]

If novice questions threaten to overwhelm c.l.a. then surely we can
split it up.  Until then, I'm in favor of inclusion.

Re: Students, Welcome!, was Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

One thing that will help is if all students even coming near CLA know
about www.adahome.com, since many of their questions are answered there.
We have one of the best home pages around, thanks to the folks who do
such a good job of putting this together and maintaining it. I guess
we should point to it frequently!

Re: Students, Welcome!, was Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Michael Feldman]

In article <dewar.861817424@merv>, Robert Dewar <dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu> wrote:
>One thing that will help is if all students even coming near CLA know
>about www.adahome.com, since many of their questions are answered there.
>We have one of the best home pages around, thanks to the folks who do
>such a good job of putting this together and maintaining it. I guess
>we should point to it frequently!

Also www.acm.org/sigada.education, which is designed specifically for
students and educators. Both of these URLs are in my .sig, which I
generally include at the bottom of CLA posts.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) 
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Cooperate with those who have both know-how and integrity."      
   Fortune cookie, Wu Dynasty, Bethesda, MD, Spring 1996.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ada on the WWW: www.acm.org/sigada/education or www.adahome.com 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Students, Welcome!, was Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Michael Feldman]

In article <335C3071.6EE0@bix.com>, Tom Moran  <tmoran@bix.com> wrote:
>
>If novice questions threaten to overwhelm c.l.a. then surely we can
>split it up.  Until then, I'm in favor of inclusion.

So am I. If I think a student is going too far in asking us to do
his or her homework, I will simply and politely (and probably privately)
say so.

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman -  chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5919 (voice) - 202-994-0227 (fax) 
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/faculty/mfeldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Cooperate with those who have both know-how and integrity."      
   Fortune cookie, Wu Dynasty, Bethesda, MD, Spring 1996.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ada on the WWW: www.acm.org/sigada/education or www.adahome.com 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Jerry Petrey]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 5193 bytes --]


mrbunny@mail.zynet.co.uk wrote:
> 
> First, many thanks to those who responded positively to my request for
> information.
> 
> Having posted a request to assist my  computer studies (See simple
> student problem). I have been e-mailed to tell me that I have made an
> "inconsiderate mistake" and that if this news group was open to
> students there would be many thousands of postings every day, making
> the newsgroup inoperable. I have many objections to this argument, as
> follows:
> 
> If paedophiles and sado-masochists can have free access to their
> special interest groups why can I not have the same equality?
> 
> If I was a post-graduate student or a final year student working on
> leading edge Ada applications nobody would object to my postings
> because they would be interesting. Is the objection therefore really
> about wanting to avoid "casual" questions? If so the message was
> clearly marked simple student problem so it could be avoided by those
> not interested.
> 
> Would students post in many thousands of messages a day? I doubt the
> Ada student population is big enough! It seems that not many colleges
> use Ada as a teaching language. At TVU we only study it in the first
> year, so I would guess that only a small percentage of computer
> students have an interest in Ada. Until I mentioned the group to my
> class-mates none of them knew of it�s existence, and neither did the
> tutor. If that is the case in other colleges then the number of
> potential posters dwindles drastically. Not all Ada students go on to
> become Ada professionals but I would imagine that Ada professionals
> have over the years accumulated in numbers to the point where the
> population of Ada professionals probably far outweighs the population
> of Ada students. Therefore if the quantity of messages posted to the
> newsgroup is reflective of the entire population of Ada professionals,
> it would need a vast international army of voracious Ada students to
> post many thousands of messages a day. Where are they?
> 
> I see a lot on the Ada web sites concerning the demise of Ada and
> attempts to promote the greater use of Ada. If the Ada community is
> serious about this then they are shooting themselves in the foot by
> banning students from the news group. I study part time attending
> college one day a week. A lot is crammed into the day and the
> opportunities for access to specific tutors is extremely limited. As
> we travel from distant places none of my class mates are on hand to
> discuss problems outside of college. If I find my current text books
> inadequate, the supply of college books is so short that I must
> reserve a book two weeks in advance! The local library also requires
> me to order books because they consider Ada too obscure to warrant
> stocking text books. New text books are prohibitively expensive.
> Having access to the newsgroup for the OCASSIONAL problem would be
> extremely helpful.
> 
> Am I right in my understanding that most of the academic newsgroups
> are on servers sponsored by universities? It seems a bitter irony
> then, that those organisations tasked with creating the new
> professionals should wish to deny them access to a very valuable
> resource. Does familiarity breed contempt?
> 
> If all that I have said is wrong, and that students really would be a
> nuisance, then why can the problem not be solved by creating an Ada
> student�s newsgroup. If there are resources to create newsgroups about
> sadism and paedophilia then I am very angry that students cannot have
> an equal share of the webs resources.
> 
> The spirit of the web is one of equality and freedom, unless it seems,
> you are a student!
> 
> Mark.

Students most certainly should be welcome on cla.  No one controls
access
here.  However, a lot of users of this newsgroup object to students
who just want someone to do their homework assignment for them. We all
know that no one will learn anything that way.  If a person doesn't want
to
take the time to study and really learn something from the class he is 
taking (for whatever reason), then he should just drop it. But asking
for
help in understanding is fine and should be encouraged.  It's all a
matter of what you ask and how!  I think your approach of identifing
that your request was a student question in the header was a good one -
if people don't want to help, then they can skip it.  We get far more
worthless messages on cla all the time than a legitimate student
question!

I do disagree about there not many Ada students however.  I think there
are a lot more than you realize and rightfully so - Ada is becomming
more and more popular and there are a lot of Ada jobs paying good
salaries
out there.

Good luck with your studies.

Jerry


-- 
=====================================================================
== Jerry Petrey                                                    ==
== Consultant Software Engineer - Member Team Ada and Team Forth   ==
==            Rockwell Collins Commercial Avionics Group           ==
==            Melbourne, FL   email: gdp@mlb.cca.rockwell.com      ==
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Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[John M. Mills]

mrbunny@mail.zynet.co.uk writes:

[..]
>Having posted a request to assist my  computer studies (See simple
>student problem). I have been e-mailed to tell me that I have made an
>"inconsiderate mistake" and that if this news group was open to
>students there would be many thousands of postings every day, making
>the newsgroup inoperable. I have many objections to this argument, as
>follows:
[.. eliding Mark's well placed comments, ..]

Basic_Student_Advocacy is new Soapbox(hearsay_evidence);
with Basic_Student_Advocacy;
use Basic_Student_Advocacy;

package body Ventilation is

begin

I have long been bemused by CLA correspondents' tendency to leap on basic
language questions, particularly those which might be related to class
assignments, as inappropriate, and generally suggesting that such posts
are an attempt to "get something for nothing," to the detriment of the
educational process, and a potential dilution of the serious content of
the group.  There is even a FAQ on it!

My Net experience has been that posts and responses are a good way to
get answers to common but confusing questions which plague many beginners
in areas from programming to sports, and a rather poor place to follow
reasoned, abstract, academic discussions.

I think that more bandwidth could be freed by summarily diverting the
language flame wars to the appropriate [!] *.advocacy newsgroups than is
ever likely to be burned up by low-level mechanical language questions.

If CLA readers are so offended by encountering introductory-level
questions, split the group as has been done for other groups, isolating
basic and tutorial questions from more specialized and/or complex ones.
Castigating posters of elementary questions and impugning their motives
is a pretty funny form of advocacy.

If students can "cheat" on their classwork by asking questions on the net
perhaps the intellectual content of the classes needs a bit of beefing up
and the mechanical content a bit of reduction to pre-programmed materials.
However, I do not believe that students are generally being shortchanged
in this manner -- I rather think that rumors of the supposed damage to their
classroom experience are, as Mark Twain said about reports of his death,
"greatly exaggerated."

end Ventilation;

-- 
John M. Mills, Senior Research Engineer   --   john.m.mills@gtri.gatech.edu
   Georgia Tech Research Institute, Georgia Tech, Atlanta, GA 30332-0834
        Phone contacts: 404.894.0151 (voice), 404.894.6258 (FAX)
            "Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Simulations"

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[mrbunny]

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Thank you all very much for your responses, particularly to Mr Dewar 
who has also taken the time for a few "off air" discussions.

Unfortunately many assumptions have been made about students. Yes
there are some that would post in at the drop of a hat but a very
unfair assumption has been made that "all" students are lazy and
unresourceful. Saying "If all students....." condemns us all to the
bottom of the heap and does not remotely provide a true picture of the
range of personalities that exist within the maligned collective
"students"  In my experience of two university courses lazy students
are the minority. I believe that time constrained examinations (in my
case a 3 hour program modification task sitting at the terminal) are
still a crucial part of most technical courses, and therefore students
are well aware that they must develop a proper "learning process" to
fully understand their subject.  Contrary to the the implications
being made that "all" students are lazy and unresourceful, in todays
economic climate many students work very hard to cope with both
financial and academic pressures.
My "negative" response to being told not to post to the group arose
from the sweeping assumption (yes another one!) that my simple
question was evidence of my unresourcefulness and lack of
understanding of the learning process. I had in fact looked through my
course notes, through text books, and through sample programs and not
found what I was looking for. The simple reason being that what I was
looking for did not exist A single command for deleting one record
from an array. I now understand that the method is to move all records
above that to be deleted down one level, an idea I was toying
with. But with the manipulation of arrays being so commonplace I could
not believe that there was not a simple command I had overlooked to
perform this. 
Also if you consider yourself to be an intelligent resourceful person
it hurts to be told you cant talk to someone because you are not an
intelligent resourceful person. I am now 39 years old. I left school
with only low level qualifications but despite that I rose to director
level of a recruitment company turning over �3 million p.a. I own two
houses, and the mortgage is paid on one of them. (The recession and
stress led me into computing) So to be labelled as someone lacking in
resourcefulness and having no understanding of the learning process is
dissappointing, to say the least.
More than 25% of the UK student population are over 25yrs old. They
are usually like myself, looking for a career change, often they are
single parents raising children as well as studying. These are very
resourceful people. 
So you see, this concept that students are so unresourceful that given
half a chance they will "all" post into the newsgroup for each and
every assignment question is ridiculous! We are being discouraged from
the group as a result of a fears based on little hard evidence. Fears
based on assumptions.

Mark

 

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Nick said

<<I have myself experienced 'higher' education in this country (as a mature
student), and it is certainly not easy. Resources for Computer Science
departments are generally poor. I can only concur with this post, and
others, that students should not be shunned wholesale from this newsgroup.
Should we not be aiming to encourage students of the Ada language, and
trying to make them feel good about both the language, and the Ada
community?

It would be a good idea to try to ensure that a flyer giving a few 'ground
rules' to all new posters to this newsgroup be made available, perhaps by
means of a regular automated posting. I'm a great believer in the concept
of consensus: if students do not abuse the newsgroup, they needn't pose a
problem or a threat. They are the Ada programmers of the future.>>


I don't think anyone suggested that students should be "shunned wholesale"
(unless you take mrbunny's suggestion to form a separate newsgroup as
being along these lines -- but as I said earlier, I don
't really favor a separate newsgroup).

What I do favor is the idea that students should make some effort to look
at standard useful stuff starting at www.adahome.com before firing off
questions that they should be able to at least attempt answering themselves
(and sometimes this attempt can be a very good way of learning, even if it
is unsuccessful). Actually your suggestion for a flyer for all new posters
is attractive, really all it needs to do is to point to www.adahome.com.
A number of newsgroups do this, but I had the impression that to achieve
this, a newsgroup must be moderated, and that seems a bad idea for CLA.
I don't like the idea of restricting anyone from posting ... But if I am
wrong on this, and we can set this up without introducing a moderator
that would be valuable.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[mrbunny]

Nick Roberts said;
>
>It would be a good idea to try to ensure that a flyer giving a few 'ground
>rules' to all new posters to this newsgroup be made available, perhaps by
>means of a regular automated posting. I'm a great believer in the concept
>of consensus: if students do not abuse the newsgroup, they needn't pose a
>problem or a threat. 

Speaking as a beginner student, what would be helpful is a suggestion
as to the way forward from a problem. Eg. "To delete a record from an 
array try rearranging the structure of the records." I still have to 
resolve most of the problem and of course do the coding.

I think giving students coding might be more confusing than helpful, 
as you may be using commands etc. that we have not yet come across.
If we did figure out how to use them we would perhaps have missed
the point of the assignment, ie. to show mastery of the commands we do
know. This may not be the case for more advanced students who are
presumably expected to be more adventurous.
I suspect most beginners will look at the coding examples in some of 
the postings and scurry off elsewhere for fear of embarrassing
themselves!

Students who are posting in weekly I would guess are taking advantage.


When our little boats of learning get stuck on the rocks all we need
is a shove in the right direction. We will still do the paddling!

Mark.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Kevin Cline]

jm59@prism.gatech.edu (John M. Mills) wrote:


>My Net experience has been that posts and responses are a good way to
>get answers to common but confusing questions which plague many beginners
>in areas from programming to sports, and a rather poor place to follow
>reasoned, abstract, academic discussions.
>

And there are many inexpert instructors in the world (probably not so many
teaching Ada as C++ for obvious economic reasons), so  for large numbers of
students c.l.a. is the best place to get authoritative answers to subtle
questions.

Re: STUDENTS GO AWAY!!!!!!!??????

[Robert Dewar]

Kevin Cline said

<<And there are many inexpert instructors in the world (probably not so many
teaching Ada as C++ for obvious economic reasons), so  for large numbers of
students c.l.a. is the best place to get authoritative answers to subtle
questions.>>

And unless you have a *very* different idea about what might constitute
a subtle question, I have never seen anyone object to a student or anyone
else posing such a question to CLA (although I have seen plenty of inexpert
answers to such questions on CLA :-)