On Thursday, June 30, 2011 01:50:38 PM Josh C. wrote:
I tend to think “the student knows better than I do what they need, I’ll
just give them all the tools and let them choose for themselves so as to
get maximum benefit” but lately I wonder if people simply can’t make good
decisions, even if they want to.
I actually have some ethical issues with this. If you’re having this
much
trouble with this sort of problem, you either need to learn fast, or you
need
to not pass the course. Maybe giving some people all the answers will
help
them learn fast, but it also might help them pass a course they
shouldn’t.
It’s also kind of doing their work for them.
Also, if the course is at all decent, they have all sorts of other
resources
available to them. If they’re asking us and not their teacher (or TA),
then
there’s probably a reason for that, and it probably has to do with
cheating.
If it’s a larger project where asking mailing lists for help should be
allowed, then if they’re at all competent, they’re asking real
questions, of
the sort professionals ask each other all the time. Those are also the
sort of
question where answering it doesn’t mean doing someone’s work for them.
Still, it’s been long enough since I’ve seen this discussed that I don’t
really remember what an “obvious homework question” looks like, and how
it
differs from a legitimate newbie question.
On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 1:42 AM, David M. [email protected]
wrote:
I actually have some ethical issues with this. If you’re having this much
trouble with this sort of problem, you either need to learn fast, or you
need
to not pass the course. Maybe giving some people all the answers will help
them learn fast, but it also might help them pass a course they shouldn’t.
It’s also kind of doing their work for them.
With the assumption that the op really wants to learn how to parse and
alter
a string.
There is nothing wrong with leading a man to water. I don’t think anyone
cares to do someones homework nor spoon-feed an answer. Linking to the
appropriate learning resource or documentation can easily weed out the
lazy.
If the documentation is vague or overly terse then slowly breaking down
the
problem to aid the op to a complete solution tends is a good route. If
they
are still confused there is no need to have disdain towards their grasp
of
the subject. With their persistence it will become obvious they really
need
some specific attention. Showing someone how to create solutions for
their
problems is the goal. Are we all not students and are we all not
teachers?
~Stu
Still, it’s been long enough since I’ve seen this discussed that I
don’t really remember what an “obvious homework question” looks like,
and how it differs from a legitimate newbie question.
I saw one on a bidding website, the student had uploaded the problem as
a PDF. It had both the name of the University (I should have saved the
thing) and his professor’s name on it.
I think it was $40 to implement a recursive descent parser in C for a
C-style language.