On answering homework

[Tom St Denis]

People gripe about it, but honestly I think answering homework is a
good thing. It means the students go through school not learning
much, become un-competitive in the field and makes my life easier [as
I have reduced competition].

Hint: To the students, re-read that paragraph a few times.

Tom

 

[Antoninus Twink]

People gripe about it,

Some people enjoy griping about anything they can find to gripe about.

but honestly I think answering homework is a good thing. It means the
students go through school not learning much,

Whether they learn nothing or plenty from it depends to a large extent
on what they do with the answers.

become un-competitive in the field and makes my life easier [as I have
reduced competition].

Are you really so junior or so insecure that you consider gauche young
programmers, fresh out of school somewhere on the Indian subcontinent,
to be your competition?

 

[Tom St Denis]

Some people enjoy griping about anything they can find to gripe about.

Whether they learn nothing or plenty from it depends to a large extent
on what they do with the answers.

become un-competitive in the field and makes my life easier [as I have
reduced competition].

Are you really so junior or so insecure that you consider gauche young
programmers, fresh out of school somewhere on the Indian subcontinent,
to be your competition?

For one minute I thought Tom was advocating answering homework type
questions as a service to those stuck - maybe they would read and learn
from it?  But no. He does it for selfish reasons. Not that I blame
him. Paid for Linux jobs are pretty thin on the ground.

Wow, between you two there's almost one complete unique thought.

Tom

 

[Tom St Denis]

Tom St Denis ha scritto:

People gripe about it, but honestly I think answering homework is a
good thing.  It means the students go through school not learning
much, become un-competitive in the field and makes my life easier [as
I have reduced competition].

Hint:  To the students, re-read that paragraph a few times.

Tom

interesting.

my wife works in a different field of expertise (legal) and it is been
quite a few years since she started, so she had a few younger people to
train for the job in the last few years.

she always tells me that the kind of attitude here described (more or
less: do my homework, i am too lazy to do it myself) is becoming more
and more common on the job.

at first she was dissatisfied with that, because it usually means more
work hours for her to correct and complete the young people's poor
documents ... but then she realised that maybe "strategically" it was a
good thing exactly for the reason in tom's "innuendo".

but then this is a bad thing for society at large, because it means that
parents have a bad attitude towards children's education, and this bad
attitude is forced onto educationl institutions (schools and universities).

sometimes we think it is an italian defect (we live in italy) and plan
to go to live in a better place (northern europe, or america) where good
work attitude is better considered, but somtimes we wonder...

Ideally I'd rather students learn their trade because it advances
society instead of maintaining the status quo.

My quip was mostly to put things in perspective for the students
[e.g., getting through school is not the point, you're supposed to
actually learn it].

And to the multiple personality troll: I work as a cryptographer.
It's fairly niche and I'm comfortable.

Tom

 

[Edwin van den Oetelaar]

superpollo wrote:
[big snip about homework attitude]

sometimes we think it is an italian defect (we live in italy) and plan
to go to live in a better place (northern europe, or america) where good
work attitude is better considered, but somtimes we wonder...

bye

I think it is everywhere.
I guess it is google's fault. ;-)
All answers are just 0.01 sec away, why study? (or so they think).
I live in the Netherlands, I notice the same lack of 'study-attitude'. (luckily exceptions exist)
Just my Eur 0.02.
Gr,
Edwin

 

[Tom St Denis]

maybe that's the way students are in the whole western world... :-(

I think you'll find laziness and deceit are universal human
qualities. I'm taking a wild guess "wahid" is not a westerner.

As most point out there really is nothing wrong with helping students
provided they make an honest effort. What the "trolls" have to
realize is that there is a difference between lazy people and honest
efforts. One should be held in contempt, and the other applauded.

Tom

 

[Antoninus Twink]

I guess it is google's fault. ;-)
All answers are just 0.01 sec away, why study? (or so they think).

Laziness can be a virtue.

If you need algorithm X, do you work out the details and write it
yourself from scratch, or do you find a suitably-licensed library that
does it, or work from a template in an algorithms book (or research
paper)?

Which is really more productive?

 

[BGB / cr88192]

Tom St Denis ha scritto:

but i have direct experience of differences between italian and chinese
students, and i can assure you such differences are appalling wrt to
laziness... but after a few months in italy chinese too get bad attitudes.

errm...

I think the idea is that the Chinese outwork pretty much everyone...
I think this is also generally true with Japanese and Koreans as well.

basically, I think it is mostly due to strong social pressure, stressing
both conformance to social ideals (being acceptable, financial success, ...)
as well as a generally competitive mindset (people generally trying to "be
the best" among their peers, as much social respect is due to those with
higher grades, ...).

outside of this world, people may not be "shamed" so much for short-falls,
and may also find that respect/disrespect is not due to things like grades,
and as a result, may become more lax on these fronts.

more so, it likely doesn't help much that many western employers demand lots
of fancy-sounding education, but not a whole lot of skills, so it is a lot
more of a "try to get through all this education to get some big-name degree
to get a well-paid job doing relatively little..." (in contrast to "working
really hard and going nowhere").

hence, there is a lot more incentive to lie and cheat to get a better
education (or, at least, better-sounding education). everyone wanting to be
the "middle manager doing little more than sitting at a desk and/or golfing,
while getting lots of money for doing so...", rather than the person "stuck
doing all the work".

granted, the US-style corporate/industrial is a little flawed, as well as
the education system, and culture in general, but oh well... one can't
change one without effecting the others, and in most cases, likely any
attempt at change would be met with resistance trying to force things as to
how they were before...


however, in Asia, the social pressure does come at a cost:
psychological burn-out is a lot higher in those countries.

many perform well, many others become "hikikomori"...


but, yeah, laziness is fairly common in western countries in general.

at first, I would have figured it was mostly an "American" thing, but it is
generally the case elsewhere as well.

word.

yep.

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Laziness can be a virtue.

If you need algorithm X, do you work out the details and write it
yourself from scratch, or do you find a suitably-licensed library that
does it, or work from a template in an algorithms book (or research
paper)?

Which is really more productive?

Productive is understanding the algorithms you use.
Blindly copy/paste googled pieces of software you dont
understand, is not the way.

 

[Willem]

superpollo wrote:
) Sjouke Burry ha scritto:
)> Productive is understanding the algorithms you use.
)> Blindly copy/paste googled pieces of software you dont
)> understand, is not the way.
)
) curiously, a long forgotten italian writer, beniamino placido, died a
) few days ago. he used to say:
)
) "Conoscenza non e' ricordare le cose,
) ma ricordare in che libro cercarle."
)
) translation:
)
) "knowledge is not to remember things, but to remember the book where to
) look them up."

You don't seem to understand the difference
between remembering and understanding.


SaSW, Willem
--
Disclaimer: I am in no way responsible for any of the statements
made in the above text. For all I know I might be
drugged or something..
No I'm not paranoid. You all think I'm paranoid, don't you !
#EOT

 

[Dann Corbit]

Willem ha scritto:

maybe i don't. but i think the sentence i quoted and tried to translate
has yet another meaning.

Give a man a fish, you'll feed him for a day.
Teach a man to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime.
Teach him how to steal a fish and you'll cripple him for life.

 

[gwowen]

curiously, a long forgotten italian writer, beniamino placido, died a
few days ago. he used to say:

"Conoscenza non e' ricordare le cose,
ma ricordare in che libro cercarle."

translation:

"knowledge is not to remember things, but to remember the book where to
look them up."

Clearly a man who knew in which book to look things up. In this case,
if you're after a pithy quotation, try Boswells "Life Of Johnson".

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know
where we can find information upon it." -- Samuel Johnson, quoted in
Boswell's Life Of Johnson. http://www.samueljohnson.com/apocryph.html#12

 

[Albert]

<snip>
If you need algorithm X, do you work out the details and write it
yourself from scratch, or do you find a suitably-licensed library that
does it, or work from a template in an algorithms book (or research
paper)?

I find good explanations of algorithm X from Wikipedia, Skiena and
Revilla's Programming Challenges or watch a university lecture on
YouTube. Once *I've* written pseudocode, I code it up.

Which is really more productive?

The third option.

 

[Nick Keighley]

I find good explanations of algorithm X from Wikipedia, Skiena and
Revilla's Programming Challenges or watch a university lecture on
YouTube. Once *I've* written pseudocode, I code it up.

they have university lectures on YouTube!?
any pointers to good ones? Or would 5s in google answer that question?

 

[Michael Foukarakis]

People gripe about it, but honestly I think answering homework is a
good thing.  It means the students go through school not learning
much, become un-competitive in the field and makes my life easier [as
I have reduced competition].

It depends on the POV then. It's good for you because you're thinning
the competition, good for them because they fulfill their short-term
goals, and...oh wait.