I finally got around to checking my email the other day and noticed some little punk sending a threat, because of my homework rant, and I wanted to make it public my intentions (defined in the rant).

First of all, those who are not familiar with the Homework Rant catch it here...

http://www.computing.net/programming/wwwboard/forum/7407.html

--- This fellow's email is dated 10/11/03: --
exodus2005@yahoo.com wrote:
hey IR,

why are you prowling around the programming section of the message boards looking for homework questions? don't try to dominate the messageboards and tell others what they cannot post. i am watching you closely, so stop it!! if you ignore this warning and continue your behavoir, you'll be spammed.
--- end punk's email ---

Now, let my response be posted publically, because why bother responding to such stupidity via email. Exodus, if you are even
took the time to read my rant, you would find that in the long run, doing student's homework is not helping them at all for reasons listed in the rant. I and others alike will assist the homework threads with answers that will get them in the right direction not the complete assignment (for the most part). By no means am I advocating what to or not to post, post what you please... if it is a blatant "Do my homework" question with the specs thrown up and wanted the complete project sent to the student via email... then my rant applies and it applies on the other occasions listed in the rant. If it is a student that displays code, states the problem, states the attempted solutions to the problem, then they will have better chance of 1) learning the trade, 2) getting assistance, 3) getting a deserved grade.

Perhaps you should re-read the rant my friend and your idle threats mean nothing to me, because what ever you do I will do 1000 fold.

Good day to you.

IR

exodus2005@yahoo.com wrote:

hey IR,

why are you prowling around the programming section of the message boards looking for homework questions? don't try to dominate the messageboards and tell others what they cannot post. i am watching you closely, so stop it!! if you ignore this warning and continue your behavoir, you'll be spammed.

A URL of relevance is Sci-Guy's recent post...

http://www.computing.net/programming/wwwboard/forum/8248.html

I would like to quote two of the comments from that thread...

---Sci-Guy---
"I usually prefer just to be pointed in the right direction so I can try to figure it out myself. I'm just trying to learn VB and find it better if I have to do some work myself."

---Dr. Nick---
"It's great when somebody else sees the value of trying to work through something yourself"

--- I would also like to add ... ---
In my personal experience, I learn a great deal more about programming when I work on it myself. Because I am forced to try several avenues for the same solution... not only do I get to find an optimized solution, I also know what does not work and I learn new methods and technologies in the process. Homework only scratches the surface of the field, it is up to the student to dive in and take it to higher levels. I would not suspect, students will be paid in the industry for writing hello world, writing sum and max functions, and other trivial programming assignments... Where the student fails is flexibility. You will not get out of college and write program's that are in your tutorials or text books and in the industry there is no such thing as turning in late and there is no such thing as a B program, it either works or it doesn't and when you do not meet a deadline, someone else will. I see too many people get burnt out their last years of college and transfer to other programs and I see even more fellow employees loose their jobs and not be able to support their families because they are of no use to the employer and cannot function in a team environment. You simply cannot turn to your co-worker and say... "How do you write a for loop?" In introductory courses the student learns there is a foundation for both systems and software and everything is built on that foundation, without a grasp of the foundation the building crumbles. Hopefully, this will provide more insight on the concept at hand.

However, the idle threat from Exodus listed above does nothing to change my stance on homework threads. The same concepts in my rant still apply for reasons that, now, should be obvious.

IR

IR:

I give you nothing but support on this matter. I'd turn Exodus' @ss in to Justin and have him report this threat to his ISP. Not to mention, threats like this these days will be dealt with accordingly. And I am pretty damn sure that it won't be dealt with lightly. What he's dealing with is in federal hands; not time in the slammer in a county prison with a slap on the wrist for being a naughty boy.

Oh no no! This guy is going to get his @ss stretched the width of the equator by his cell mate Talula in a federal prison. Not to mention, you have proof in this matter of his malicious intent. I would go a little further and make sure this guy thinks twice before he lets his fingers get ahead of his feeble brain.

- Rolos

Rolos:

Thanks for the reply. I'm sure Justin, monitors these threads... no need to bother him with the idle threats of a lame teenager. I agree with you, it was a bad idea for Exodus to do such a thing... and his fingers are getting ahead of his feeble brain; yet that's okay, because I want him to meet Talula. ;) Take it easy man.

IR

"'you'll be spammed.'"

That's like saying you'll get popups. Go ahead, let's find his IP block and we can start the search from there.

"there is no such thing as a B program..."

I know what you meant, but the literal meaning might place this as the the caption of a comic that only bored programmers might find and read online.

I totally agree with you about the homework thing; it's annoying seeing posts with people asking for entire programs e-mailed to them.
I've never had the chance to take a programming class in a school (aside from a week-long summer tutorial), so I've pretty much been on my own to learn it. I think it would be fun to have the challenge of building programs as a homework assignment, but what do I know? ;)

-Burbble

Burbble: Programming is fun... I can't say the same about being under a time crunch of a deadline though. The interesting part is when you finally complete the assignment / project and have created something that works or meets the objective... :) By the way, the teach yourself in 21 days series is nice. That was my first C++ reference aside from my textbook. :)

IR

IR.
I fully support your response .
Many people in this form spend good time trying to answer people questions.
Some spend hours to try to help people with there questions. Any many people like I, are
Ok with this. But What we cant stand is when our hard work is taken for granted. Students who don’t care how we got the answer just as long as its there. So the cut and past our work in to there home work assignment. And as for exodus2005 I will give him my email address and he can Spam me all he wants.
I definite don’t get enough email on how I can make my “penis larger”. See how Exodus2005 is one of those guys who try to get us to answer all of his home work questions. All we have to do is watch out for a post by him asking how to write a program to Spam someone.

Thanks for your support Kwolbert. Ultimately, it is in the student's best interests to do their own work. Because in the end, the grades in college will not matter, but their ability to perform and meet objectives will. Without an understanding of this, we will be supporting an unemployed programmer with our tax payments. Hopefully, our friend Exodus will see the light, and not be among those in the unemployment line.

IR

IR,
it's been way too long the I have not been posting, and I only have a few minutes this AM, but I feel that it is important to let eeryone know that you are not alone in your homework beliefs.

The little "spammer" must have just caught your rant and none of you thousands of other posts where you clearly give solid and helpful advice.

Just like you, it gets to me after a while of seeing homework posts, especially ones where the poster does not appear to have even attempted to build the program assigned. You know they were taught the lessons leading up to the assignment, and you know that they have at least one textbook for reference. In addition, the Internet is loaded with examples of how to do most everything they are assigned (granted, not necessarily in one neatly packed zip file with comments and "their" name typed into it) :)

Anyhow, I just wanted to lend you my support, your homework rant was fully justified imho because we were (this forum) under an onslaught of homework posters around that time (final exams, end of semester? who knows).

I have told other homeowrk poster who I have spoon fed, don't come to me for a job when you graduate, because I will make you prove that you can do what your little paper says you can do, and if you haven't put the time in and understood the concepts presented to you, I won't hire you.

One last note, about five years ago, I was really amazed at all the "programmers" I met who didn't know the basics of programming, and the degreed programmers who didn't know how to do anything useful. After spending so much time on these forums, I now realize it is because people don't want to learn (or are too stupid to learn) how to do anything, they just need something to turn in to the professor. They pass because of the work of others, and then graduate knowing less than they started. (I know there are exceptions, because I hire them)

Anyhow, this is way too long.

Keep the faith, IR.
Chi Happens

BTW, the email threat may be enough to shut the "spammer" down if you inform his ISP.

Hey Chi, Haven't seen you around in a while.
I think you are right about the students
not wanting to learn and just wanting a
grade.

As an employer, I am sure that you know that
anyone can't put anything on their resume.
I'm glad to see that you are making them prove their worth. Because, ultimately, they will need to have the knowledge that they floated by while in college or otherwise and it simply will not be available.

In my university, we had three departments
that were computer/programming oriented:
Computer Science and Statistics, Software
Engineering, and Management Information
Systems. Needless to the people who couldn't
perform in math went to MIS. I double majored
in Computer Science and Software Engineering.
In both academic areas, I noticed the same thing that you noticed five years ago , "programmers" not really knowing the basics and it is because they did not want to know, they just wanted the grade to make money when they got out. The sad thing is, they do not know that employers, like you, are waiting on them to make them prove their
worth. The lack of education on their part gave the university a bad rep in the local industry and for a long time, no one would hire graduates from there because they thought the students were not educated properly. Having said all of this about college and such, I realize there are people who did not have the opportunity to go to college for what ever reason. There is still 'hope', because I have seen dedicated teenagers write better code than any of my classmates, including myself. It really depends on one's willingness or ability to learn, which sadly, learning is not a priority with some of these homework posters.

You are right in the fact I could report Exodus to his ISP and have him shut down. However, its not worth my time... probably was just some punk kid that thinks he's a hacker but get's his 'tools' off the internet, I'm sure we all know the type. lol, I think it's kinda funny.

Thanks for your support in the homework issue.

IR

I agree entirely with your post

I teach myself programming (no classes for me) and am surprised that someone has the gaul to simply post their assignment and expect a response. These are the kind of people that are going to school not to learn but to get a score which they think will get them a better job.

It is people like this who cost the tax payer money!

If you want to learn - post a question that invites an answer.

Spot the difference:

---- Course Title: Learn to Code -Part2

Please complete the following:

1.) Construct a subroutine that allows the user to input a value to a global string and then write that global integer to a file
2.) Create a program that reads this file and returns the string to a display box

---
The above is simply a copy and paste of an assignment - whilst i doubt anyone would post such an obvious message comapare it to the one below:

---

Hi there,

I am having problems creating a program that will set a global string and i cant see where i am going wrong

here is my code:

Public Sub MyCode()

Dim strValue as String

strValue = InputBox("Please input your name", "Name Box")

end sub

*** But the above doesn't store that value to the module it stores it to the subroutine, anyone know why?

---
This would inspire a response from someone in the forum much like
---

Hi, Mate

Your code needs to declare the value before the subroutine as a Public variable and you must avoid declaring it within the variable. So your code should look like this:

Public strValue as String
Public Sub MyCode()

strValue = InputBox("Please input your name", "Name Box")

end sub
---
---
---

Now we all see the difference, this should be obvious!

thank you for pointing out an example of a blatant homework question. maybe IR would read your example and not assume every programming question is homework.

"maybe IR would read your example and not assume every programming question is homework."

... What is that supposed to mean?

(Ooh, I like the "DO NOT ask a homework question unless you have already attempted to solve the problem yourself." on the Message Reply page)

-Burbble

Saddam:

It is obvious that you have not been in this forum very long. Otherwise, you will realize that myself and about eight others are the main ones who answer questions here. Homework questions, are all answered if the person who posts them supplies enough information and shows sufficient effort on their part.

If homework posting was not a problem, there would not be the notice on the thread entry page about NO HOMEWORK inserted by the guy who runs, not just this forum... but the entire website.

I think that's enough explaining. The more I think about it, the more I think you are the one who sent the email from "Exodus". I think saddam = Exodus; however, that is just speculation, just like your posted reply above. Yet, I'll keep it in mind.

IR

IR:

i have to make it clear that i am NOT or associated with that idiot.

Burbble:

take a look at this and tell me if it is a homework question:
http://computing.net/programming/wwwboard/forum/8194.html
you decide.

i made a mistake, the URL is:
http://computing.net/programming/wwwboard/forum/8283.html
sorry Burbble.

It is a homework question... The poster said himself in response number 2:

"guys i am now starting this course and i don't know much about it, the teacher gives as homework so i am asking for your help please."

-Burbble