The Codeguru Community

[SolarFlare]

It's nice to see that the people here can come together to prevent things from appearing on codeguru that we don't want. When someone posts a "homework" type question, then everybody here tells that person their questions aren't wanted here. It keeps CodeGuru (http://www.CodeGuru.com) clean, and prevents it from filling up with people who are abusing the site, and prevents them from wasting our time.

For example, the posts of sarkbrain that appeared recently. He posted in multiple forums and was asking questions that were somebody's homework, asking the people here to write him entire programs. The people who responded to his threads were quite resistant and sent him the message that what he was doing was unacceptable.

Maybe there should be a new forum, called "Homework", where people who had these type of questions could post. They wouldn't be resented as much because the homework questions wouldn't be mixing with the serious programming ones.

At any rate, keep it up, guys! I would hate to see CodeGuru deteriorate into a site of homework questions.

[gjs368]

I did see one (overly blatant) request for homework get some results out of the java forum...

[Simon666]

Originally posted by gjs368
I did see one (overly blatant) request for homework get some results out of the java forum... Now I seldom come there unless by accident (checking out what other people are looking at), but are you referring to Xeons post?

[gjs368]

Well, I wasn't going to name names, but yes I was referring to the Unofficial Codeguru(tm)HouseWarmer,
Xeon!

[galathaea]

Really! I mean, I do hate those posts that expect you to do everything for them because they are too busy and have to go out to a rave tonight and haven't yet picked out which pacifier to bring... But, I don't mind questions that are focused about a particular part of the language and are looking for the knowledge (as opposed to the work). I have seen some really bad c++ textbooks, for example, that were obviously written by people who have been so immersed in their work for so long that they have no real idea what parts of the language newbies often get stuck on. So the book make sense if you already know the language, but is not useful in any way for teaching.

I've seen both types of questions. I am happy too when I see the "gimme my homework answer" threads get ignored or responded with posts against solving homework, but sometimes I'm in a generous mood and will post questions about where they are having problems, so that they can focus on their limitations with the language and maybe learn something. The other, more positive and focused type of questions are hard to spot from the self-teaching or job-related questions (really, isn't job-related just another form of homework with a paycheck attached?) but sometimes its obvious that no one in the real world would want or need to do what they are asking.

Either way, I don't mind what the reason (homework, job, etc...) for the post is. I just dislike the "do this for me" style in general, and am quite supportive of the "i need help understanding..." style.

[SolarFlare]

Originally posted by galathaea
I just dislike the "do this for me" style in general, and am quite supportive of the "i need help understanding..." style.
Precisely!

Imagine the following:

Post by Joe A Smith:
"My teacher wants us to write a program that has the user enter a number and then prints it out. She says you have to include a variable called 'glork' and a function called 'unk' with a return value of char. The homework is due tomorrow, so please write this for me."

Post by Joe B Smith:
"I'm trying to write a program that has the user enter a number and then prints it out. What I can't figure out is, how do you prompt a user to enter an integer? And how do you use a function with a return value? Thanks for any help."

These students are both in the same class (quite a predicament when doing attendence), with the same assignment. Whose post are you going to answer? Obviously, you're going to have something like this:

To Joe A Smith:
"Try it yourself first, then respond when you have attempted it and tell us what you're having trouble with. Otherwise, do not ask us to write a whole program for you."

To Joe B Smith:
"Here is one way to prompt an integer:
int myint;
cout<<"Enter an integer: ";
cin>>myint;
And this is how you use a function with a return value..."

It's really a matter of how the people approach you... if they're rude and want you to do their work because they're lazy, that's a huge problem. If, like Joe B Smith, they actually tried it but failed because of a knowledge limitation, then it's fine for them to ask!

What I really meant by this thread is the opposition to people like Joe A Smith.