Do my homework. Times Infinity plus one.

[Duthomhas]

Is it just me, or has this kind of thing become more common? I mean, I know it has always existed since the very beginning, but lately it seems that I am ignoring every third or fourth thread asking just that.

If new programmers are too lazy and dishonest to learn their craft, we're all doomed. (Unless maybe when the AIs take over for us and relegate programming to the incomprehensible. LOL)


Also, is the Preview button broken?

[Cheraphy]

If new programmers are too lazy and dishonest to learn their craft, we're all doomed.

I think it's safe to say that not all new programmers are that way. So look at it like this: If the majority of these programmers make it through school without learning much and subsequently enter the pool of programmers seeking employment, it could drive up wages for those of us who are actually good at what we do. Yes many companies would rather pay less for a less qualified candidate, but not all would. :D

Also, preview button is working for me.

[Hippogriff]

It might just be me being cynical but I think it makes very little difference if you answer peoples homework questions or not (with no effort on their part). They obviously don't care enough about programming to take it seriously and they will never actually get anywhere with it.
Unless companies just hire people based on if you have a degree or not and nothing else....ok there might be a small problem.

As for there being more questions..."eh". It always seems like 99.9% of questions are homework related to me so probably not. People do seem to be getting lazier though (insert rant about lack of code tags here).

Preview wasn't working for me yesterday, works today!

[Lachlan Easton]

Homework Qs come in waves each year.

[twiggystardust]

Maybe the good programmers just don't ask many questions? Or if they do have a problem they do a search for it and get information they need to figure it out themselves. At least... that's what I'm hoping.

Preview button worked for Chrome on Android.

[shadowmouse]

I agree with you on this one, the amount of questions that are just basic c++ or are "make this whole program for me" questions is ridiculous. Why can't people just buy a good book and actually learn something? I'm doing my GCSEs at the moment and it scares me how little we are meant to know. I'm the only one in my class who understands OOP, let alone things like polymorphism and what's more, languages that attempt to make everything easy (but don't, and end up removing functionality and speed) like Python are being used more and more to dumb down programming to something "anyone" can do, and this is in a selective grammar school. When everyone else started programming (I say everyone else because I taught myself c++ 5 years ago), one of the first questions asked was "How do I make fifa?", and then I really gave up on humanity as a whole.

[admkrk]

We have programming problems every week in my discrete math class. It is a safe assumption that everyone in that class is going to school for some type of programming career. Each week, the teacher encourages people to post their previous week's work so others can see the different ways they went about solving the problems. Several times I have seen code that was nothing more than a direct c&p from a web site. Not only does it not always compile, as is, it often doesn't even do all that is is supposed to. To use an example, a couple of weeks ago was the Tower of Hanoi problem. You needed to print the amount of move it took for various amounts of disks (64 was one of the amounts until I asked how we were supposed to run that before the week ended). A couple that showed their work, did not show the number of moves, and just has internet code that printed moving from one peg to another. Personally, I see this attitude as beneficial to me since it lowers the competition for me when I eventually start to look for a real job.

[S G H]

I suppose the question about the broken button was to point out how many people don't use it before hitting submit.

[3hM2Nwbp]

admkrk wrote:

Personally, I see this attitude as beneficial to me since it lowers the competition for me when I eventually start to look for a real job.

Personally, I see this attitude as devastating, as it grows the pool of talentless hacks that have a college degree. For those like myself that are self taught, it's border-line impossible to get a good job anywhere in the field without having connections on the inside. I only have my current position because I knew my employer beforehand. I'd rather see people like that bagging groceries at Walmart than filling the ever-stagnant employment pool.

.02¢

[TheHardew]

For me it's pretty funny, that students of programming ask questions, which I can easily answer regardless of my age - I'm not even in high school. Though, still those kind of questions are frustrating: "PLEASE HELP IT'S FOR TOMORROW!". And later they delete them, so that their professors cannot prove they were cheating.

@S G H Some time ago, whenever I clicked "preview" there was only blank card. Now it works. Maybe question about button was literal, maybe it was a suggestion, or maybe both.

[S G H]

This guy still cannot be blocked, huh?

[ultifinitus]

Duoas wrote:

Is it just me, or has this kind of thing become more common?

To be honest, StackOverflow has probably taken the majority of the more fun questions because that's their ninja way. When I want to do some serious thinking I'll go there, the reason I stick around here is probably the same reason we have so many unfortunate souls begging for answer keys- we're relaxed. No reputation, some members who will indeed do the homework, and a generally non-confrontational community (usually), why wouldn't they ask their homework questions?

Also lol@ this spam business.

[Homberto]

Looks like there will be more job opportunities for me.

[ne555]

> To use an example, a couple of weeks ago was the Tower of Hanoi problem.
> You needed to print the amount of move it took for various amounts of disks
> (64 was one of the amounts until I asked how we were supposed to run that before the week ended).
By writing the recurrence.

[admkrk]

It was recursive, that was the point of the exercise. The problem with so many disks is each time you add one, the time it takes to run is more or less doubled. Forty three disks took about 17 hours to run on my machine.

[htirwin]

StackOverflow has probably taken the majority of the more fun questions because that's their ninja way. When I want to do some serious thinking I'll go there

I'm confused by this. Stackoverflow by law doesn't allow fun questions or serious thinking. They only allow questions with precise unique answers, and don't allow discussions. Questions that require thinking are off limits. Programmers stack exchange howerver does allowed a little bit of thinking.

Unfortunately for discussion forums, stackoverflow also doesn't allow "do my homework questions", so they all get funneled to sites like this. And here, do my homework questions are highly successful. It would be nice if we could start banning people for doing other peoples homework.

[ultifinitus]

Oh Oh! Guys I have an idea- we should keep a central repository of actual answers to homework questions, but obfuscated! like the pyramid problem:

make a pyramid that looks like this:

    a
   aaa
  aaaaa
 aaaaaaa

could like like this code:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>

typedef std::string bloop;
#define blorp std::cout

bloop makepyramid(int size, bloop curstring = "", int curcount = 0){
    static auto flarp = [](int count, char block)->bloop{bloop r;r.append(count,block);return r;};
    static int vary[] = {0,5,2,-2,17,2,15,-35,-57,10,0}; char base = 'C';
    curstring += flarp(size-curcount+vary[0],vary[7]+base) + flarp(curcount*2+1+vary[0],base+vary[curcount%7]);
    if (curcount==size-vary[2]/2){
        return curstring;
    }
    curstring += vary[7]+base;
    return makepyramid(size, curstring+bloop((char*)&vary[9]),curcount+vary[4]-vary[6]-1);
}

int main(){
    auto boto = [](bloop thing){blorp << thing;};
    boto(makepyramid(26));
}

Eh? Eh?

[3hM2Nwbp]

Would be a handy tool for professors. I'm all for flunking / expelling cheaters. McDonalds is always in need of new recruits.

[Duthomhas]

Wow, very good and thoughtful responses. Thank you!


Re: preview button stuff... alas, I had no ulterior motive to promote deep thought. Simply, I couldn't preview my post. Heh *embarrassed*


Re: catching cheaters
Any professor worth his salt will instantly recognize stuff the student stole from the internet. Few introductory professors care to take the time necessary to weed them, let alone get involved with the invariable challenge to their claim of plagiarism. (Because some bureaucrat will not take 'because it's my job to know and it's obvious to anyone who actually knows anything about the subject anyway'.)

Even if there were a repository somewhere on the web for how to do things in weird ways (and they do exist!) they are easily outnumbered by examples on the web of doing it in a more or less correct way.

[ultifinitus]

htirwin wrote:

I'm confused by this.

By "fun" I mean difficult.

Duoas wrote:

Even if there were a repository somewhere on the web for how to do things in weird ways

But it would be our repository

^_^