Can post a code but afraid of plagiarism

[Rustom Mody]

On Monday, January 20, 2014 7:38:28 PM UTC+5:30, Roy Smith wrote:
>  Chris Angelico wrote:

> > On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 4:21 PM, Dan Stromberg wrote:
> > > I did a short time of teaching while I was in school.  If three
> > > students all turned in the same assignment, they all got docked
> > > significantly.  There was no "who copied off of whom?", it was
> > > "someone shared when they shouldn't have."
> > What a wonderful way to promote an attitude of "my code is MY CODE and
> > should never leave my sight". What a delightful way of thinking to
> > unleash on the world.

> That's a little harsh.  Working in groups, and sharing code, are 
> important parts of how software gets developed today.  Those 
> collaborative work habits should indeed be taught.  But, school is also 
> about evaluation of progress.  At the end of the class, the teacher 
> needs some objective way to figure out how much each student has learned 
> and assign a grade.  It's hard to do that if people aren't handing in 
> assignments done individually.

This position is a repeat of the position on whether print is a good
function for students to use: wearing teacher hat and professional
programmer hat give very different desiderata.

As an example of the need for multiple hats consider this scenario:

You are interviewing a programmer for a java job.  You ask the
candidate to explain quicksort.  Quick is the answer: java.util.lang.sort
[Im using java as example because the sort in python is not so
explicitly a quicksort]

You would find this answer unacceptable (hopefully)

On the other hand when that same programmer were on job, if instead
of using java.util.lang.sort he spent his time implementing one, you
would be equally peeved (hopefully!)

Most people dont get that education is like a game: Some games --
meccano, lego -- can be explicitly educative but any game can be put
to educational purpose.  Now you can stymie the purpose by saying: "I
find these rules arbitrary -- I refuse to play!" but that only
obstructs the process until some other rules/games are created.  And
will be seen to be fruitless once you get that all education is more
or less about bigger and smaller toys, ie unreality.

"Dont copy" is standard rule in edu-institutes. It should be
understood to be arbitrary and not some fundamental moral law, just as
"Dont hand-touch the ball" is a rule in football but not basketball.

Some people actually have fun making up new games -- a hybrid of
football and basketball?  More often people find it reasonable and fun 
to stay within the parameters of pre-existing rules.

As for Dan's "Punish the whole coterie rather than only the copycats"
rule: as a teacher I can say that fancy rules that are non-computable
are worse than useless.  So if this is more effective than the usual
"punish the copier" rule -- all power to you.  The only thing I would
add is this: Please close the feedback loop; ie check whether the
rules are serving their intended purpose.  Typically one finds that
beyond a point harsh rules are counterproductive. Probably related to
the fact that if your driving cycle is entirely carrot-n-stick, the
driven will become indistinguishable from mammals and repiles

At the other end of the spectrum is the interesting anecdote in "Zen
and the art of motorcycle maintenance." The author is teaching some
course and decides to abolish exams. The students who most strongly
revolt are bottom of the class -- ie those most likely to fail!!

Some more on my blog
http://blog.languager.org/2010/05/declaration-imperation-and-language.html