[Tutor] A rant about Tutor homework policy

[Magnus Lyckå]

At 17:13 2003-06-14 -0600, tutor.python.org wrote:
>With all due respect to the great minds which inhabit this list, I wish to 
>make known my opinion

You are clearly free to do that, and I hope I can help you
understand and respect my view of this.

>To my mind, one of the key values of the hacker culture is the free flow 
>of useful information,

That depends on how you define "free flow of useful information".
*I* don't find it useful for *anyone* to help someone pass a test
that the student doesn't really understand. If I provide the
solution to an assignment as was requested just recently, I would
not only provide information, I would actively and knowingly take
part in cheating at an educational institution, where teachers
work hard to try to help their students to actually learn important
things. My parents were teachers, one of my sisters is one now, and
I occationally do computer training, so I know a little about the
hard work and dedication that is the foundation of good education.

I don't want to be even remotely connected to that so-called hacker
culture that claims that "information wants to be free" and takes that
as an excuse for breaking into computer systems or abusing telephone
systems. I once translated Eric S. Raymond's How To Become A Hacker
and from the emails I got from wannabe crackers after that, I know
how difficult it is for people to understand what I feel is true hacker
culture---even if Raymond is very explicit.

But just like some who cheat their way though education, those
wannabe crackers aren't in it to develop their minds or to learn,
or even to solve real problems. They just want a free ride. So they
can't even be bothered to read the hacker howto properly.

The original is now at http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
There's a link to my translation if anyone is interested in that.

The mentality that Eric portrays there, which I can fully understand,
but not fully agree with, is certainly not the mentality of someone
who would respect or aid the cheating student, or the person who did
his homework for him. I feel that a somewhat more humble attitude is a
good thing, but basically I agree that if I am to help someone, this
person should show that he is trying to learn and that he is trying
to help me help him. Why would I help someone who just expects me to
do a job for him for free?

I believe in old fashioned values such as truth, honesty, respect
integrity and responsibility for ones actions. I have little respect
for cheating, lies and fraud.

It's one thing if someone honestly asks for help to try to understand
some aspect of Python or programming in general. If you have followed
this mailing list, you will have seen attempts by several people to
try to help people actually understand what it is they are doing, without
just providing an answer that they might well use without understanding it.

As a professional computer consultant, I feel that my responsibility
is *always* to help my customer the best way I can. Very often this is
not the same thing as giving straight and simple answers to their
questions. It's often a matter of getting them on a different track.

>When I am attempting to solve a problem, I believe I know better than any 
>third party what kind of assistance I need.

It's my experience that I usually help people more by
forcing them to explain what they are doing, by
sometimes provoking them and by pushing their eyes off
their code into a wider field of ideas, than by simply
answering their detail questions.

I've seen consultants who earn lots of money (at least
for a while) by always doing exactly what they are told,
and by always answering just the one questions they are
asked, even though they know very well that the customer
is completely on the wrong track. Often, this will mean
that they will get more work... I think that they are
dishonest and a disgrace to the trade.

It's my conviction that helping someone to cheat their
way through education is not helpful, but destructive.

>Why should we care about sabotaging this or that educational system?

I for one value higher education. I certainly believe that the
important thing is what we learn and how we use what we have
learnt, not how we aquired this learning, but I do think that
the formal educational systems are valuable, and that cheating
makes them less valueable.

I feel like this because of the way the educational system I went
through helped me to develop intellectually and professionaly. I
want others to get this possibility as well.

If someone gets to the point where he tries to get someone else
make a complete and working program that he can hand in as his
own work and get credit for, I think the best thing I can do
is to make it clear to his person that what he is about to do is
destructive, and to try to help him actually solve the problem
himself.

>Ultimately, it is the individual who decides whether they will pursue real 
>understanding,

True.

>and no amount of integrity policing by this list will change an 
>individual's inner motives.

Maybe. But I don't want to assist in things that seem destructive
to me, and I do think that people are at least partly shaped by
the attitudes they meet. By helping someone cheat in a friendly
manner, I would also encourage him to cheat again, and make him
feel more ok about cheating.

I'd much rather have someone remember me as having been helpful
ten years later, rather than the day after handing in that homework
that he couldn't manage to do on his own.

I actually think I help people who try to cheat by showing them
that I find that unacceptable. In the short term, it's easy to
dismiss people who are negative and don't want to go along with
the things you want, but in the long run, must of us let these
things sink in.

>I for one would love to see this list set politics aside and provide more 
>answers to standard computer science problems.

We do that when we get questions from people who actually come
here to learn Python. Don't you think so? I'm not a bit interested
in helping someone who is basically trying to get help so that he
can avoid learning Python, but still get a degree where it says
that he is a trained Python programmer.

Actually, one of the main reasons that I answer questions on this
mailing list is that I want to see Python more widely used. Both
because I think it will benefit me, and because I think it will
benefit development in the world in general. We're all better off
if people can accomplish more results with smaller efforts.

For this to come true, use of Python in higher education is an
important factor. The more Python is used in education, the more
Python programmers and Python programs we will see in the long
run. Many people will try to bring the tools they liked from
their education to their future jobs. Particuarly for a product
without a powerful marketing machinery, such things matters a lot.
I certainly don't want to sabotage that.

>If valuable resources on the Internet decide not to publish fundamental 
>information regarding computer science for fear of stepping on the toes of 
>"educational institutions", then the knowledge will effectively be limited 
>to participants of those institutions.

I don't see that this has ever happened. Dumping a buggy code
listing and a spec on the mailing list and asking for a corrected
version to be provided is not at all the same as asking for
fundamental computer science information.

I'm in Sweden. You don't honestly think I worry about "stepping on
toes" in New Zealand? It's not about this at all. It's a matter of
right and wrong. I don't believe a bit in the "authority" in a formal
educational system. I believe in the educational substance, in learning
and knowledge. The authority and the "institutions" are all surface.

Good programmers are usually more interested in depth than in surface.
That's one reason why it's said that managing programmers is like
herding cats. :)

>I say, make the information available to everyone, and let the cheaters 
>cheat!
>After all, they're going to cheat anyway.

As Alan said, this is not about restricting information. We don't just
turn some knob to let "information" flow out of our brains when we reply
to a question. To provide a good answer to a question requires an effort,
and I won't make that effort unless I think it's worth it.

Helping someone to cheat just because they "will do it anyway" sound a bit
like the moral defence of drug dealers. I will certainly not put myself in
that position.

>The rest of us will avail ourselves of what information we need when we 
>need it in order to gain as much understanding as possible in the few 
>short years we have before the task of pushing up daisies falls to us.

I think we will have much more time to solve real problems, and to
help people who genuinely try to learn if the cheaters go away.
Helping them will only encourage more cheating and attract more of
them.


--
Magnus Lycka (It's really Lyckå), magnus@thinkware.se
Thinkware AB, Sweden, www.thinkware.se
I code Python ~ The Agile Programming Language