We need a new homework policy.

Due to the recent flood, make that invasion, of homework posts we need a new 'unwritten board policy.'

Regardless of whether or not you have shown any effort or copied that effort from a friend I absolutely refuse to help with any homework.

The problem is that the assignments are the same - like the bank account problem I've seen on here about ten times and we end up answering the same questions about the same issue ten times. And we get the same response ten times.

So if you want to join my campaign of no homework help so that we may rid the board of these posts.......please say so.

They have become quite a nuissance.

I think that it is imparative to help the young flegling programmers to mature.
granted we should be able to attack there posts with references to google and and the forum search option, but anyone that is truely trying should be helped. I have learned a lot from the nice and kind programmers from this site.

I'm not saying don't help anyone. Just not on homework. They are in classes so they can ask their prof.

All too often they aren't trying at all xviddivxoggmp3. I object to the posts that state the problem and ask us where to start. I think if someone is the kind of person who really deserves help, the homework-like properties of their post will probably be almost invisible. I don't think help on homework should be banned completely, but I do think that the idiots are invading once again. Count me in (for the most part).

I'm in on this too, though I've already kinda been in on this in the first place, whenever I see a post about homework I just blow it off. Honestly, this site wasn't made to help people with homework, it was made as a learning source for C/C++ "Your resource for C and C++" not "Your resource for homework helping slaveworkers"

No offense, but lighten up a bit! Not helping with homework will in no way affect the number of posts. Most posts like that are from newly registered students who will not notice in any way that homework posts are not answered. If a person is trying really hard to understand something, why should we not help even if it is homework? Why even have the site at all? I'm not saying do their work for them, but if they have a legitimate question and put in some kind of effort into figuring it out we should help them understand. Lets face it, you'll probably learn far more talking with us here on the site than asking their prof who may or may not be helpful/available.

Not saying you need to feel obligated to helping everyone and by all means, flame away at those people who just post their problem and hope that we write it for them. But to start a crusade against all students who just want to understand C++ kind of goes against the whole purpose of the site IMHO.

> No offense, but lighten up a bit!
Then you'll get flooded.

Personally, I think some of the senior members here and their "cut through the BS" attitude are a good thing. That's been one of the foundations of this board. "I'll teach you to help yourself."

> Not helping with homework will in no way affect the number of posts.
Well, most people will help homework posts, as long as the person asking is truly having trouble with a particular issue.

>
Most posts like that are from newly registered students who will not notice in any way that homework posts are not answered.
<

>
Most posts like that are very lazy.
<
Fixed.

>
If a person is trying really hard to understand something, why should we not help even if it is homework?
<
I personally see no problem with exactlythat, but I decide nothing.

> Why even have the site at all?
A place to share juicy information, and help people that aren't just getting it for some reason. No helping "whankers."

> I'm not saying do their work for them,
Good.

> but if they have a legitimate question and put in some kind of effort into figuring it out we should help them understand.
I agree!

>
Lets face it, you'll probably learn far more talking with us here on the site than asking their prof who may or may not be helpful/available.
<
I agree again!

>
But to start a crusade against all students who just want to understand C++ kind of goes against the whole purpose of the site IMHO.
<
Unfortunately, almost any student that posts homework here is going against what the purpose of the site is. If you can't figure out the problem within the context of the course and school equipment, odds are it's going to be a tough profession for you.

LOL I can't figure out if you are agreeing with me or disagreeing with me!

To sum up my view:

Posting homework hoping we will do their assignment for them==bad
Posting question that they have tried hard to understand but a little extra help from experienced programmers==fine
Ignoring homework questions will in now way stop the flow of them

Quote:

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Unfortunately, almost any student that posts homework here is going against what the purpose of the site is. If you can't figure out the problem within the context of the course and school equipment, odds are it's going to be a tough profession for you.

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While this is certainly true of some, I think almost anyone here who has taken programming in college can tell you of how many terrible teachers there are. Just look at the Digipen thread to get an idea. So many teachers are those who programmed in the 80's and couldn't keep up with technology and so now teach instead of work in the field. They still teach programming as though its twenty years ago and have no idea how to properly use languages like C++ and Java. Many students ask here because there is no other way for them to understand and I think they should be encouraged to do so.

> I think almost anyone here who has taken programming in college
Oh yeah, I started to realize that when one of my computer related instructors at tech school didn't know about the command prompt in Windows XP. While she was just a basic "computer concepts" instructor, it bugged me that she was trying to explain busses, and other things on the CPU when she did't know that!

-edit-
I expect teachers to be booksmart about their field. STUDY FROM HOME. Live the computer life. Family, single, whatever...do what it takes for your job. :confused:

-edit 2-
Oh yeah, more people than you think didn't put in the effort they could've. In another community, the only questions I've ever asked, I've never gotten a straight answer on. Apparently, the answers are a mystery(honestly), just my luck. :p

Like I said, most computer stuff is on your own material. Computers are constantly changing, are you going to want to be instructed for the rest of your life as new technology develops? Of course not. Best to get the nack now as good as you can!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Shadow

If you can't figure out the problem within the context of the course and school equipment, odds are it's going to be a tough profession for you.

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Not nearly everyone that studies programming plans to work as programmer in the future. For example, everone going to a technical university in Sweden has to take one programming course.
I have no problem with people helping other people with homework related questions, as long as the question is a particular question and not an entire task.

Well i support Bubba completely, that is with people who just copy and paste their assigment without even looking at it themselves....

On the other hand whhen they do put some effort into their assignment but are just stuck somehwere we should only be giving guidelines ( no full answers ). At the end of the day it is just a homework you can easily fail on some and still end up having good grades.

Even most colleges and universities where they have any IT course will have their own board where they can post problems like that ... even my college has it and when i have a problem with the assignment ill just post it there, since everyone who has the assignment looks there, thus it is something like students helping each other from a distance ( even lecturers visit those boards and give replies or hints and tips ).

And to cut my story, im am totally behind Bubba
:: dances around like a squirrel on music of yanni the jazz master ::

Greets,

Ganglylamb

Programming is a lot about learning. The best practices of today will be obsolete with a new concept on the horizon just next year. If people show no dedication to what they do and just paste their assignment here in the hopes of dumb people answering anyway, that's just lazyness and should not be answered.
If someone is looking for help with a task that is his homework, great. I'd rather have a coworker asking for help later than someone giving up or making mistakes.

>Due to the recent flood, make that invasion, of homework posts we need a new 'unwritten board policy.'
I think the present policy works just peachy:

Cprogramming homework policy:

In the event of a homework thread, respond with any or all of the following:

1) A reference to google.
2) A sarcastic remark.
3) A scathing flame.

For best results, try all three in one witty post. :P

I personally like the line I used when someone was asking for all sorts of things that are perfect for search engines (about the time GMail and the IPO were big things in news):

Quote:

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Originally Posted by me

I believe there's one being marketed by a company called Google, but you'd better hurry - they're in the middle of a TradeMark dispute.

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If someone could make it a bit more scathing we could adopt it as the standard.

Wow...

http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showthread.php?t=57656

Howdy,
Yea thats it, stop helping newbies then you won't have to call Cprog a programming resource...

M.R.

> Yea thats it, stop helping newbies
Don't confuse the 95% of the newbies who show some effort and get pretty good help from this board with the 5% of leeches who just dump their homework direct from their tutor without even thinking about it.

Quote:

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While this is certainly true of some, I think almost anyone here who has taken programming in college can tell you of how many terrible teachers there are. Just look at the Digipen thread to get an idea. So many teachers are those who programmed in the 80's and couldn't keep up with technology and so now teach instead of work in the field. They still teach programming as though its twenty years ago and have no idea how to properly use languages like C++ and Java. Many students ask here because there is no other way for them to understand and I think they should be encouraged to do so.

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Well, this is true to some extent. You should see how many applicants we get went a position open up- that have no teaching experience what so ever. All of my colleagues, including myself, have taught in the classroom before coming to higher education. So at least we have an idea.

But there are also some students that just have no clue at all- they are in over their heads.- you can place blame on both teachers and students.

Here are classroom homework policies for my programming classes stated in writing

Code:

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Rules of Engagement:
•        You may only use topics we have learned or currently learning to solve the particular programming task.
•        I will explain in-class about each program. Only questions pertaining to the particular program assigned at the time will be taken.
•        No questions will be taken on the day the program is due.  Remember, procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part!!
•        You may turn in the program only one class day in advance of the assigned due date.
•        I will only take one question per day on individual debugging problems.
•        Finally, if you are unclear about something-please ask me-others may have the same question.

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Howdy,
Point taken.

M.R.

I also try and keep in mind that if we hold these people's hand's all the way through college, people who program for a living have to deal with these idiots in THAT situation. The hostile reaction should come as no surprize then, since most of the board's users program for a living.

or we could help all of them and have less competetion in the job market in terms of skills :D
[/joke intended]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by vasanth

or we could help all of them and have less competetion in the job market in terms of skills :D
[/joke intended]

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Man, look at all this crap I have to clean up, what moron did you have in here doing this?!?! I'm going to need _at least_ $80 an hour for this..

> people who program for a living have to deal with these idiots in THAT situation.
Been there - done that :(

If any more lazy guys ask for answers for their homework , just give them wrong answers so they won't trust anyone next time and do it by them-selves :D.

Im too sleepy to read all of the replies , sorry if this has been suggested before ;)

Being somewhat of a newbie, I figured I'd chime in here. Someone (I think Thanatos) had a thread not too long ago about how pathetic introductory texts were. He's right, if I had to rely on the textbook that is used in my C++ class, I'd be screwed.
It seems to me that programming requires methodical and logical thinking, and everything must be clear and concise. For some reason, textbooks on the subject seem to be somewhat methodical, vaguely logical, and about as clear as mud. How the requirements of the one lead to the situation of the other is beyond me.
For the most part I find tutorials on the web to be much more useful. Granted some of them (like Prelude's latest on here) go a bit over my head right now, but I know what is being driven at. Getting feedback on these boards has been extremely valuable to me on more than one occaision. The cut and paste dumps of an assignment and "can u hlp plz?? :)" are just pathetic. Let them fail.
Sometimes you're truly stumped though. It's like working on your car for hours, not knowing why it won't start, and your buddy saying "why isn't the coil connected?". In other words, don't fix my car for me, but feel free to tell me what I'm missing.
For those who respond to "I have this code....and I'm trying to do this" with "have you tried..", thank you.

The problem is, for every one of us that says "........ off", there's someone who thinks they're helping by doing it for the person. So it doesn't really matter how many people don't help, because there's always some idiot who will do it for them anyway. So the glut of "do it for me"s never stop, because, yep, someone will do it for them.

The thing is, then they get all uppity about how great they are for helping dumbass#2435256, and how you should be helpful too. It's just not even worth it any more. I get so tired of telling people to read the god damn announcements, and to use code tags, and to... The list goes on and on.

So it doesn't really matter how many of you don't do it. Some "helpful" idiot will do it anyway, defeating the entire purpose of the board.

Quzah.

Just an idea, but instead of having an announcement titled simply "Homework", why not have a sticky that has a title like "Posting homework will not be tolerated" or "We will not do your homework for you" or similar. Would be an eyesore, but that way people will certainly see it and instantly know the policy. Then we wouldn't need to rely on the new users to actually <gasp> read the FAQ, board rules, or homework announcment because lets face it, we all know nobody reads those. Wouldn't get rid of all of those annoying posts, but might make a dent.

a good idea PJ, but i think a nice I am sillyI am sillyI am sillyI am silly YOU, GO HOME!!!! would be more clear in stating the general consensus on homework policy

more to the point we need and iron fist sorta policy where the mod's effectively close homework request threads rather than make them into a gang bang(Note: i mean that in the non-sexual sense of the term)...

sean,
I just got to that post.
ok
i agree with everybody.
there are people that abuse the forum.
i guess they are not true to the code.
it will shine through later.

sorry to repost this complete abuse of the forum.
http://cboard.cprogramming.com/showthread.php?t=57656
this person needs to change their field of study.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by quzah

The thing is, then they get all uppity about how great they are for helping dumbass#2435256e245, and how you should be helpful too.

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fixed.

I wonder if somehow the greeting could be spiced up a bit (I know, it should be sufficient, but some of these people just aren't getting it) and make it really hard to miss the point. Also, it might be an idea to do the same to the stickies about posting code - make them really noticeable.

How about weeding out the particularly lazy ones?
If you made folks click on "read and accepted" under each of the 15 points in the guidelines sticky before posting, it might deter some of the "do this for me" posts. At the very least, they couldn't say they didn't know about code tags, the boards policy on homework, etc., because they couldn't post before they'd gone through it.
Better yet, make them read it and have to pass a quiz on the guidelines before they can post.

That would turn the number of new registred members to zero. No one would bother going though such a process just to register on an online board.

Howdy,
Honestly, a gentle or maybe not so gentle insult usually does the trick.

M.R.

I've suggested this before and I still think it's a good idea: There should be a manditory quiz you have to pass before you can post. Take all of the answers right out of the Announcements, and make it a multiple choice. You have to get all the answers right before you can post.

Quzah.

So, you don't think that would severly reduce the number of new members?
And don't say that would be a good thing ;)
It doesn't take much for a person to decide it's not worth the effort.
But perhaps it would not affect the new membership rate if done right. I'm not sure it would reduce the number of stupid homework questions though.

perhaps creating a seperate section for homework would tidy things up....make like 8 stickys in that section explaining how to ask for homework help and warn that bad questions will be ignored. if they post in the wrong section ban 'em

While on the topic of a homework section, we could just have it there to weed out those questions more easily into a section of the board where it won't interfere with regular posts. Then, whenever it strikes somebody's fancy, they can just pick and choose a poster from their to let off some pent up rage on? :)

hahaha
homework forum
that is a funny option, but a good idea in my opinion.
and it doubles as a stress relief.

A homework forum will make sure homework posts keep of the other boards but it then you would just see all different kinds of questions ranging from VB to C++ Java Perl Python Php and all the like poppin up...

And yeah it would definately be a funny board...
BUT an insane one to manage and maintain...

Yeah, and then you'll get the ones that are really off topic...

If a Greyhound bus leaves Chicago at 2:15 A.M. travelling west at 14 miles per hour, and a plane leaves Florida heading towards Australia at 300 miles per hour. Now, assuming gravity is at a constant, how long will people keep reading this post before they get tired of this quickly declining joke which was clever at first but the author just didn't know when to stop and wrote more than he should have.

welll.....granted people would post in the correct homework section, the same honor system rules would apply if one was to tell them the board was for C and C++ only...

A homework forum would be great. This is how it would work:
1) Any question which even remotely appears like homework would be moved there.
2) None of the regular members would post there, including moderators.
3) The only people that would post there would be people needing homework done.

See how great that would be? :D Just punt the post over there and forget about it. ;)
Seriously though, how hard would it be to have a quiz you have to answer?

Quote:

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1) When should you use code tags?

a) Never.
b) Every time you have any kind of question.
c) Every time you post code.

2) Which is the correct way to use code tags?

a) <code> ...your code in the middle of them like this... </code>
b) [code] ...your code in the middle of them like this... [/code]
c) ===code=== ...your code here... ===code===

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Then throw a few in on other stuff, like homework and the like.

[edit]
Hell, I've got a BETTER idea! Make it so every time you submit a post you have to answer one random question from a bank of questions covering the announcements also.

The regular posters would soon have them memorized, so it would just be the matter of ticking a radio button and continuing as normal. The rest of the people would at least have to answer SOMETHING, and would have no excuse for being ignorant as to what the announcements cover.

I'm all for it. I don't have any problems answering some question I already know the answer to before I hit the button.

This is a great idea. I'd even make it cover stupid FAQ questions, like fflush( stdin ) and what not. Nothing overly hard. You could even have a link in the question saying "The answer is here."
[/edit]


Quzah.

I think a homework board is a good idea. It could have a limited amount of times each person is allowed to post/start threads for say every week or month so to prevent rampant abuse. If people felt like doing them maybe it could have separate newbie/homework tutorials on more braod topics such as good coding practice, simple algorithms or other such things.

I actually wouldn't mind a separate homework forum. That way I could go there and help people with their homework without having to wade through all the sarcasm and hostility from established members! ;)

The problem lately is that lots of people don't know how to ask properly...they give us their CS assignments, and expect us to do them. The fact that these people are getting rejected (and rightly so) will not change if we designate a section of the forum to them.

What's wrong is the way the questions are being asked. Right now I'm in first year "Intro to Programming" (sadly I only got a 65% on the challenge for credit exam...turns out "output parameter" meant "pointer", but ah well) and I can see why people come here with no clue what they're doing. My prof knows less than most people here, teaches in a way too advanced method for people seeing C++ for the first time, and then, hands out ridiculous (based on what he's taught so far) assignments. So they come to places like this, trying not to fail with minimal effort (some are lazy, and some really just have no clue what they're doing).

So they give us the question full out, hoping we do it for them. People here for that purpose are not going to spend time reading a FAQ or posting guidelines (not in detail anyways). They just want their solution because they don't plan on being back (though, just wait until that next assignment gets handed out...).

Now, given a Homework section or not, those types of questions will still be asked, but, now that they have a section, will people's attitudes change towards the questions? And will we actually write their programs for them? I won't.

That's what Rent-A-Coder is for.

If that's what we're headed for here, well...I really doubt that's the case. This is without a doubt the best place for knowledge in all things C. A great place to share ideas and get help with ideas of our own.

If we come across a specific problem, or don't know how to tackle a situation, the collective knowledge on these boards is without a doubt better than any other resource out there (or atleast we know how to find that resource *AHEM*Google*AHEM*). And sure, if every blue moon we come across a compiler error that keeps us awake for a month straight, we post all our code for review :) But in all those cases we've done work beforehand, and we know that nobody here will write our programs (nor do we want them to, because we appreciate the value in doing it ourselves) for us.

So, what's the point I'm getting at?

A nice big:
We help with homework
We don't do homework
Would be more effective in the middle of the signup screen than a homework section. Because it's not the fact that it's homework they're asking for help with (I can deal helping with homework), it's the fact we're expected to write a program for somebody else's lazy needs.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by quzah

[edit]
Hell, I've got a BETTER idea! Make it so every time you submit a post you have to answer one random question from a bank of questions covering the announcements also.


[/edit]


Quzah.

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unfortunatly this is a generalized cut and paste forum

back on the subject of bad teachers, just yesterday my teacher asked me to help her find out why her program kept aborting....she was trying to cast something somehow..i don't know what she was doing, but i knew what she wasn't doing..she wasn't doing it right.
maybe she should have read the warnings.

aside from the warnings, there were other things i found to my delight...
originally the program was written with a an array...she thought that was the problem and made it into a vector instead. still didn't work...... the best part about it was this line:

vector<Employee *> employees(4);
//code ....
delete employees[i];

is it just me or.....?

Wow you people seem to have bad teachers or just a bad school system, im also in college doing a It course and the teacher that gives Java also gives C# and C++ and i have to say that he just rox, seems like he knows everything ( that is everything i ask him ), and teh way he explains it is so easy i mean, the way he explained objects, methods and other things in java was incredible , ppl who had never programmed before even knew what he was talking about after half an hour...

Anyway im just lucky i guess then to have great teachers :d.

my systems analysis and design teacher is really good...it's not really as hard to teach as programming i imagine, but he's extremely organized and has an answer for every question.

he definitely knows what he's talking about.

Three years in Comp Sci major, only one bad teacher so far. A java prof but does not know it "at all". Couldn't answer my basic, simple question. Never asks again. That is not acceptable.

Code:

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vector<Employee *> employees(4);
//code ....
delete employees[i];

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>is it just me or.....?
It's just you I think. Provided i is within the boundaries of the vector and the pointer was allocated memory with new, there's nothing wrong with this code. Perhaps you meant this:

Code:

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vector<Employee *> employees ( 4 );

// Code...

delete [] employees;

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