[Tutor] doubt in Regular expressions

[Danny Yoo]

> You are confusing me for the OP. Please read carefully next time before 
> you respond to the wrong person.
>
> I bumped because the OP's question was not specific and I thought I 
> talked about people making their requests or questions very specific if 
> they expect any useful replies.

Hi Evans,

Let get this out in the open.  I'm not certain that "bumping" helps on 
Python-Tutor.  It's not like we're voting for certain questions to be 
answered.  And the volume of questions isn't yet high enough to "bury" 
anything.  We're not Digg or Slashdot.

The key to mailing lists like this is to keep signal-to-noise as low as we 
can: otherwise, it ends up driving away volunteers who want to help but 
who have limited time.  Bumping doesn't add signal, but it does annoy 
volunteers, and that's bad.

So, let's please not do that again.


Addressing a general problem: I'm getting the strong sense that some 
data-mining class has just given an assignment to write a search engine in 
Python.  In this scenario, the instructor may link Python-Tutor as a good 
resource for asking questions.

All of this would be perfectly fine.  Well, sorta.  If one is in an 
"upper-level" course such as data-mining, Python-tutor should not be much 
help, since we focus on basic programming questions that should already be 
familiar to any CS student.  I don't mean this to be snobbery; this is 
just a statement of my expectations.

In any case, we're getting hit now with questions on how to do this search 
engine assignment.  If I'm reading this situation correctly: can someone 
contact that instructor and tell them to tell their students not to abuse 
Python-tutor?  We're not a one-stop shop for homework or project help, and 
these sort of questions tend to hit the morale of volunteers a bit. 
Again, it's not healthy for the list.


Thanks!