[Tutor] Create command

Thu Sep 22 09:57:27 EDT 2022

Nadine and all,

I agree. I was trying to get across that people who want HELP have to be more clear on what they want help on in a limited way. I am seeing many requests on other forums too in which there seem to be people asking for work to be done FOR them rather than alongside them. People want answers. I prefer people wanting to LEARN how to make their own.

Perhaps a better answer is no answer at all. 

My message also could have been a request for more explanation of what exactly they are stuck on, or asking them to explain in their own words what they think the outline of the problem is, or one of many other such back-and-forth exchanges. I have seen such a process take a very long time to resolve, longer than the class the student is taking. Particularly annoying have been times when multiple people interacting have found they were not being given enough correct info and solving the wrong problems.

I have exchanged some private mail with Dominique and she seems sincere enough. I continue to think her original question looked like HW, and that is OK if she then asks a more specific question in which the overall HW is mentioned for context and the question is one about how to parse a string that looks like “fetch this” or how to write a function that will do part of what they want or get help on what may be causing an error message …

If anyone read the rest of my message, and note I am NOT asking anyone pay me anything, just pointing out there is value to the time you ask others to donate, I zoom in on the problem and show how it took some effort to make a guess about what the assignment was and then talk more about approaches to solve it.

But I am not running this forum and it seems likely that others are happy to work with such requests. I will let them do so and not point out that I am unwilling.

From: Nadine Mullings <nmullings1 at fordham.edu> 
Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2022 8:43 AM
To: Dominique Hagler <dbhagler at gmail.com>
Cc: avi.e.gross at gmail.com; tutor at python.org
Subject: Re: [Tutor] Create command

This is a listserv that goes out to multiple recipients. I would encourage those who offer help to assume positive intent and share help in that spirit otherwise reserve their additional commentary for outside this chain. It was disappointing to see the blatantly condescending response to this inquiry. 

On Thu, Sep 22, 2022 at 6:40 AM Dominique Hagler <dbhagler at gmail.com <mailto:dbhagler at gmail.com> > wrote:

Avi,

I never asked anyone to DO my homework I was providing what I had so I could have a better understanding.  

Thank you, I will no longer need service from you all.

Thank you Steve for taking the time that you did.

Thank you, 

Dominique Hagler
Have a great day!

Sent from an iPhone, so please excuse brevity and typos!

> On Sep 21, 2022, at 9:57 PM, avi.e.gross at gmail.com <mailto:avi.e.gross at gmail.com>  wrote:
> 
> Steve,
> 
> I think it is time for some of us to go into business and charge $500 or more per hour to actually DO people's HW from beginning to end and not even think of trying to get them to learn anything. I am afraid even at that price we might have people who took us seriously and were willing to pay! LOL!
> 
> Kidding aside, I and others here want to be helpful but not do their work. The goal is supposed to be to get them to think and learn and perhaps explain some facet where they are stuck. 
> 
> I am not clear what Dominique wants as her understanding of the word "command" may very much differ from what some of us may mean.
> 
> So to be clear, the assignment she is looking at can range from the trivial to the complex. There already is built-in python functionality that deals with key value pairs in data structures with names like dictionary or hash or associative array. A function that encapsulates that may not be needed but can be simple enough.
> 
> But what is a command line? Is it the shell in which you invoke python from as in the old days? Probably not as a way to call python and ask it to store a key/value pair and return immediately seems less than useful.
> 
> So, I assume she means the console-level of a python interpreter. But what does it mean to type "key-value" there, let alone "./key-value.rb" ??? 
> 
> The latter looks like a RUBY file and that is not even python.
> 
> So the question is a tad muddled and a non-starter even if we were willing to do her HW.
> 
> My guess is that what is being asked for is sort of like asking you to write a primitive calculator in python and then calling it interactively and having it read your commands like "5 + 3" and parsing and evaluating such commands line after line till you quit.
> 
> So without providing an answer, it is my GUESS you need to write a stand-alone python program. Give it a name like hashing.py and call it from a command line or double click on an icon or whatever.
> 
> Inside the program it should initialize something like an empty dictionary object and read lines from STDIN that the user types that use some format to specify your request to add a key and value pair. Additional commands it should handle are mentioned such as fetching the value for an existing key. Who knows what else is being asked, such as showing the current contents, deleting and so on. It sounds a bit like the calculator analogy. Make a program that lets you add and modify and whatever the contents of  dictionary.
> 
> I see no code illustrating such a user interface. The class should have covered how to play with something like a dictionary (or is asking to build your own) and how to read from a console and write to it and so on.
> 
> But as none of us here has been in the class or seen what materials have been covered, and it is not our HW, I think Dominique should either do it herself and only ask when some more specific Python question comes up, such as how do you put out a prompt without a carriage return inserted, or whatever. The HW is meant to have the student learn and mostly do it themselves so if  test (or the real world) comes around, ...
> 
> I may be a bit touchy as someone on another forum submitted totally clearly a HW style question that their girlfriend asked them to do for her, so of course they figured they delegate it to a random bunch of people out there and take the credit. I sent a note suggesting we don't really feel like doing HW, especially so indirectly and got a reply:
> 
> " so what if it is home work - if you can't do something, simply walk away- "
> 
> What a nice attitude. Totally missed or avoided my point and suggested I leave them alone to find someone else to do it for them.
> 
> Like I said, if we charged $500/hour, would most people realize that the goal is to do it for themselves?
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tutor <tutor-bounces+avi.e.gross=gmail.com at python.org <mailto:gmail.com at python.org> > On Behalf Of Steve Willoughby
> Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2022 6:58 PM
> To: Dominique Hagler <dbhagler at gmail.com <mailto:dbhagler at gmail.com> >
> Cc: tutor at python.org <mailto:tutor at python.org> 
> Subject: Re: [Tutor] Create command
> 
> Dominique,
> 
> It looks like you have an interesting homework exercise there to figure out. I don’t see a specific question from you, though. What have you tried so far? How did that work? What are your thoughts for where to proceed with this?
> 
> We can help guide you in your course of discovery here, but we need something to start with since we’re not going to do your homework for y ou. 
> 
>> On 21-Sep-2022, at 03:36, Dominique Hagler <dbhagler at gmail.com <mailto:dbhagler at gmail.com> > wrote:
>> 
>> Create a command line tool for storing and fetching key-value pairs. In other words, given a key and a value, which are both strings, it can store key and value together, and then return that value when fetched by that key. The tool must be able to be run from the command line by typing "key-value", though it is acceptable to also require the path or an extension (eg, "./key-value.rb" is fine). If needed, it is acceptable to include a setup script that must be run before the tool can be run. Running the tool must open an interactive session that accepts put, fetch, and exit commands. When ready to accept a command, it must output the string "> " as a command prompt.
>> 
>> My command example: 
>> 
>> Person1 = { “name” : “ Daisy”, “age”: 20}
>> 
>> 
>> Thank you, 
>> 
>> Dominique Hagler
>> Have a great day!
>> 
>> Sent from an iPhone, so please excuse brevity and typos!
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Nadine (she/her)

Nadine Mullings <https://namedrop.io/nadinemullings> 