Greetings,
As an old member that said the they would never ask for a new forum, I am not breaking my
word. I request that we have a forum for Homework Assignments (or better yet Obvious Homework Assignments).
My rational is this:
We have here an excellent professional site and being both a SW professional and an instructor/professor I had sent my students here. The problem being is that professional problems and homework problems are two different animals.
As a professional we want answers (ie: code snippets) that point us in the correct direction. As students we want answers (ie: fully documented, ready to submit, projects) whereas what is really needed is (usually) is a series of questions posted to the student of how to question themself to progress.
Also, we have a difference in 'real world implementation'. That is, most instructors want the students to implement an algorithm as pure as possible, then in class they can discuss pros/cons (only to leave the student with a totally misplaced understanding of the afore mentioned algorthim only to have the newbe totally crushed by the first team code review :-) .
So while I hate the idea, I think the time has come - I see too many HWPs being answered as real world problems (note: this is only for the the answerers and not the questioners) that show real understanding of all of the issues and time spent answering at a level that is not appriciated by the recipiant.
Thank you and have a plesent tomorrow.
-steve
Steve Fahlbusch
ps: i don't expect that you enact this, it's just that i see a lot of helpful folks answering 'academic' questions in a real world frame of reference - and we all know the later takes a whole lot more effort and time.