Removal of Homework Requests

[CaptainMorgan]

Is it possible to remove these requests, or the answers to them? No matter what their story, this does nothing to assist the poster in their Java skills learning and lowers the credibility of this site. If they want their homework done for them, they should seek freelancing sites or sites where homework is provided. There should be a level rule - if they present homework without an attempt on their part, they are not be given the answers. If however, they do make a decent try at it then there is nothing wrong with assisting them. I've counted about half a dozen homework requests with complete answers simply handed to the poster, which is ridiculous.

Any thoughts?
-Capt

[JavaBean]

In my opinion this is all related to the intention of the poster. We should not decide for them. I generally prefer not giving the whole answer to them but i know one very active community member who likes to give full answers to everybody.

I try to prevent myself to add extra rules. In my opinion, for this case, we can give advices to the students (e.g. with a new forum rule). This is my thought.

Also: I saw people on Sun's forums who has thousands of posts and behave like he is god there and also behave crudely. We should learn to be open for different views even in a forum. Experience is good but it is just the result of being a couple of years older most of the time or being at the correct place at the correct time.

[JavaBean]

By the way, don't get me wrong, i don't like some mistakes newbies do while posting too (e.g. not formatting their codes even if it is written as a forum rule..)

[roots]

We can take advantage of *family thing* missing in sun's forum. We can excuse homework question may be by pointing other option to adopt. End of the day we need to welcome every one and make them understand why we are here for.

[CaptainMorgan]

Shot down by majority decision. I just remember when I first started programming and the help I received then was a wakeup call. I realized I couldn't rely on others to do my programming/homework for me - if I wanted to learn it, I had to really learn it. It only serves to benefit the one doing the work, rather cheating oneself of the learning experience. Ok, that's enough of my rant... I probably should have titled it differently, rather than requests - "influencing better homework answers" (removal is a harsh word)... but I agree openness is essential(JavaBean, I'm afraid I don't quite understand your first post's last paragraph - the part about the Sun forum person and experience, how does this factor in?). Also, code tags are for oldies like us(really me) to be able to read their code , it's more courtesy than homework-answer-seeking.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roots

We can excuse homework question may be by pointing other option to adopt.

roots, this is a great idea and I had the courtesy of explaining to one fellow the benefits of this option - rather than giving an exact answer to the homework question, make the decision to hint at the answer, both parties get something out of it, in my opinion.

[bri1547]

You know guys, I am taking a java programming class. I am taking it online. My instructor is rarely available. So I have me, my crappy school text book in .pdf, and my recently purchased java book of my own. I have been an lectrician for 15 years and am just starting to learn about computer pogramming. Now, a bunch of people who could help are saying they won't help? I love this forum. Eranga has responded to several of my posts and has never given the direct answer. I have even posted that I do not want that under any circumstances because when I finish my degree I have to go somewhere and do this for a living. This forum has been invaluable in my learning the java language. Please don't quit helping. After all, helping others is why we all of us are here.

[fishtoprecords]

Gotta agree with the spirit of Capt'n post. Doing homework is about learning. Asking others for help defeats the purpose.

There is probably a fine line of how much help is appropriate, but my feeling is that proper amount of help is very low.

Getting help from your classmates is another thing. No one programs in a vacuum, and bouncing ideas off colleagues is a good idea. But I think it should be restricted for folks in the same class, not folks in forums all over the 'net.

[bri1547]

fishtoprecords, not everyone learns the same way. Some people can read something from a book and get it. I learn better from direct interaction better. As far as the same class...when the blind lead the blind, they both fall in a ditch. Sounds to me like it's a case of "I've got what you need, but I'm not giving it up because, well I don't want to." Silly little game...Why is it so bad to help out newer programmers? Did you understand java after you read a book? If you did, then my hat is off to you. I'm a pretty smart fella and I'm havng a heck of a time with java. I was a software engineering major before my java class and quickly switched to business systems analysis. Isn't helping each other what a forum is all about?

[fishtoprecords]

I learned programming sitting on the floor in a hallway all night with other students. We punched cards, submitted them, and checked while we waited for turn around.. I wrote my own code, and we talked about our problems. We were all peers.

I have no problem with peers helping each other, as long as they don't actually swap code.

Some of what it takes to grok programming is just plain hard work, it takes days or months, not minutes.

I have serious problems about folks asking for help, and getting it, from folks who have already been through the learning curve. I consider that cheating, an honor code violation. I've taught at two universities, and programmed professionally for 35+ years.

I believe you learn nothing by cheating.

[bri1547]

Dude, I hate to tell you I've spent many sleepless nights trying to understand this stuff. I also work full time while going to school full time. Asking for help is in no way cheating. Was it cheating when you asked your Dad for help with Algebra in the 7th grade? Is that an honor code violation? With 35+ years of experience you could provide a lot of help to newer programmers and help them avoid a lot of the mistakes you made. Why not do that instead of condemning everyone behind you to the same path? Why not use that experience to everyone's benefit instead of lording it over them? I'm sorry, asking for help from someone who knows about a subject is not cheating. If it was then there would be no such thing as tudors.

[Norm]

There's a lot learned when you try something and it fails and you have to try it some other way.
Being given working code helps you know where the "path" is, but falling off it a few times really lets you know where it is. And you'll remember it better.

And then there's the one about: Giving a man a fish vs teaching him how to fish.

[fishtoprecords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bri1547

Dude, I hate to tell you I've spent many sleepless nights trying to understand this stuff. I'm sorry, asking for help from someone who knows about a subject is not cheating. If it was then there would be no such thing as tudors.

Asking for help is not the same as getting complete code. And a lot of folks asking for homework "help" insist on getting the complete code. Some because they are lazy, others because they have not done any work, and don't understand the concepts so "help" is not enough.

I'm not as binary on this as you seem to be. Help is fine, but there is a fine line, and in the majority of cases that I've see in this forum and others, most of the homework requests are way over the line.

If you think you are spending too many sleepless nights on it, perhaps you are in the wrong field.

[Nicholas Jordan]

I'm gonna go with lectrician, there seems to be in my estimation a missing link that has to do with whether one is naturally inclined to let us say mechanics or something. I sorta do not have an answer even today for several areas of interest I would have in this thread, but I have wasted so many nights staring at the screen and getting nothing done that I clear and present go on record that code sharing is in and of it's own merits not a basis for dismissal or backspacing an otherwise non-categorized poster. Most of us can tell the difference by how the poster phrases the question and how much work gets done. Right now, right this moment, I basically have been pushed against all my efforts onto the highway to hell. The machine is basically ruint for it's intended purpose because of all the code folding and a bunch of other things that get you laughed at for complaining about.

4-k line buffers and 10-k of code are not overly challenging, perhaps grasping advances in sorting and searching is. Not all of those advances lend themselves to progress by the intermediate until and unless one has some coding skills to test with. If a beginner has no coding skills, the intermediate usually does, then if that poster is a student who is going to take the code to class and just pass it in then what we are doing in our time and treaty is passing world control to a master few who grasp the code because they studied it.

The ( poster ) looking for the easy life won't make it if we give him free code and so I say free code, free toads, any damn thing they want -> because as the electrician can tell you <- this is one super-easy craft compared to back-feeding 240 with your bare hands. You can do it with 240, you cannot with 277, with todays world they expunge anyone who even wants to work with 24-v .... too much danger as a false wolf-cry to protect their own carfully-crafted illusory world-view. One which is spoon-fed for the most part. If they are not even interested enough to study the code then they probably have another desitiny anyway.

I had an interesting high school contact whom I studied as a sort of social study. This person was exactly the person portrayed in "Catch Me If You Can" which is a classic in the reference section for the sort of person I would not want sitting across the hall from me in a coding shop if there was some reason that value could be obtained by gaining access to my code. It is a subject to which I have given a great deal of thought and have some observations that contravene contemporary doctrine. My opinon of such doctrine was conved in the

Code:

int[] digraphs = {-8,9,-15,18,-8,-14,10,-6,3,-1,14,-7,6};//

that I used recently as a signature.

For me it is full-blown first-class information warfare, a battle for the mind, to defeat the lamers who will do not even have enough interest to study free code. I was recently referred to Eric S. Raymond's page by a Master Cryptographer at the Max Planc Institute in Germany, a brief review of ESR's page tells me the only free code that person would throw away deserves a crtl-A backspace anyway. Ditto one Xah Lee I found recently, I doubt that individual would worry about giving someone who was looking for the easy life a bunch of free code. Numbers lie, let them die. I would say, we get too much lies as it is so if one cannot figure it out even with free code then there is no point in holding back those of us who do not follow the Secret Agenda at Buried Code Castle.

[bri1547]

fishtoprecords, I'm not as binary as I sound. I guess you could say that I am driven by fear...fear of losing the only help I have been able to find. Rest assured that my goal is to learn this stuff, not just get the answers. I post my questions here only after I have tried and tried and tried to figure the answer out on my own. Often times I am given a hint or a vague point in the right direction and I slap myself in the forehead. I have a crappy instructor and no physical classroom to go into and ask anything. I left to figure it all out myself. Perhaps if I went to a traditional college I would never even have found this forum. Or even if I had an instructor who was available and when she was took the time to listen I probably wouldn'tbe writing this now. I was talking to my wife about all of this and she took your point of view. Ironically enough, I agree that the direct answer should not be given. To all thos who have helped, thanks a million!

[Nicholas Jordan]

bri1547: Google for Algorithm K

You are not alone.

Fear is the right word, I thought I would have to tone it down, I call them the DownClowns.

For the reasons you cite.

240 / 277 What's the difference?

The numbers lie.