🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1990Feb27....@oracle.com> mfriedma@oracle.UUCP (Michael Friedman) writes:
>
>I.  Since we are on the subject of ethics, is it ethical to rummage
>through the files in someone else's account?  I think you should have
>damned good reason at the very least even if it is your computer.

'grep' is hardly rummaging.  You only find what you already know to look for.

>II.  What is wrong with having copies of last year's solutions?  Is
>education a game that you want to win by failing students?  If not,
>then why do you object to their learning from old homeworks?

There's nothing at all wrong with learning from old homeworks.  However, 
retyping them in lieu of doing any creative work is not an acceptible practice.

>
>III.  What's wrong with having copies of other people's homework as
>long as you hand in original work?

They didn't.

> [MIT nostalgia deleted]  We were there to learn using any and all
>available methods and sources, including old homework, professors,
>upper-classmen, and each other.  Not to play some bizarre dominance
>game with professors.

Oh grow up.  I have never met a faculty member who wouldn't have given a year's
pay to never have to worry about scummy little undergraduate weasels stealing
their fellow-students' code, breaking into offices to steal copies of upcoming
tests, sabotaging other students' work, copying on exams, etc.  We don't
enjoy this sh*t, and it's not a game.  It's what lets people graduate with
college engineering degrees, so they can go on to design walkways for Hyatt
Hotels in Kansas City.  It's what gets the bright commuter student failed out
of the class, because he/she *didn't* cheat with the rest of the class, and so
lost the advantage of pooled effort.

Of course, some of us also have this weird notion that people should have some
personal integrity.  I envy professors at schools with honor codes, where you
don't have to worry about it, because anyone caught is gone.  Too many schools
these days are like juvenile court: we can catch 'em, but it doesn't do us any
good because we can *do* anything to 'em without University backing.

I'm not saying there aren't professors who engage in "bizarre dominance games"
with students.  My personal least-favorite is the "I'm going to prove to you
that you're stupid and I'm brilliant, by humiliating you publicly" game.  But
don't kid yourself about academic integrity; they all take it seriously, and
they're right to do so.


-- 
        David M. Tate       | "It made the basses of their being throb in    
  dt...@unix.cis.pitt.edu   |  witching chords, and their thin blood pulse
                            |  pizzicati of Hosanna..."
 "A Man for all Seasonings" |                     -- Wallace Stevens