Creativity is nothing but Breaking Rules
Please do not provide ready made answers.
Creativity is nothing but Breaking Rules
However, consider the following, which is based on my learning experience, and also many others because I don't think I'm all that unique in the way I learn things. Anyways, in many situations, I think the best way to learn something is to start with something that works and then figure out how, why it works, or how the solution fits into the java "philosophy. Certainly there are many times when I have gotten much mileage out of a "solution" that was handed to me. I was then able to go back and much more easily understand the material that was presented in something like the Java Tutorial or the API docs.
Henry Wong wrote:
However, consider the following, which is based on my learning experience, and also many others because I don't think I'm all that unique in the way I learn things. Anyways, in many situations, I think the best way to learn something is to start with something that works and then figure out how, why it works, or how the solution fits into the java "philosophy. Certainly there are many times when I have gotten much mileage out of a "solution" that was handed to me. I was then able to go back and much more easily understand the material that was presented in something like the Java Tutorial or the API docs.
Well.... Do you regard the process of arriving at the solution, instead of having a solution handed to you, as useful learning? Do you regard having an incorrect solution, and learning why its an incorrect solution, as useful learning? Do you regard "accidentally" learning something that is related, but not really what you needed, because you didn't know better, as useful learning? Do you regard all the "debugging" and "testing" that you had to do, because you didn't have a working solution, as useful learning?
Yes, if you only regard learning the exact subject that you need, as learning, then reviewing a working solution is the best way to learn.... But then again, how would you know that the working solution that was handed to you, isn't some crappy code that barely holds together?
Henry
David Newton wrote:Handing someone a solution may also come down to literally doing their homework for them. What's the point of having someone do your homework for you?
I don't think "we" should start making assumptions that that is what people are going to do.
David Newton wrote:Re-read the ShowSomeEffort FAQ entry. No effort was shown.
I don't think "we" should start making assumptions that that is what people are going to do.
So we should hand people answers since they *may* use it appropriately? Or should we ask "Excuse me, will you use this knowledge appropriately?" Or should we just follow the policies already in place and encourage them to think it out? I vote for the last one.
We'll have to agree to disagree: you answer questions how you want, I'll answer them how I want.
David Newton wrote:Look: in a forum for beginners the whole point is to encourage them to figure things out for themselves. I don't see this as a difficult concept. There are answers-on-plates all over this site in contexts where it makes sense--but when it doesn't, it's more likely that people will receive hints, things to think about, links to documentation, and so on.
If you're going to continue this conversation it should be moved to the ranch office or somwhere else; it doesn't belong here.
Fred Hamilton wrote:
I honestly think you have drawn conclusions that don't necessarily follow from my original points. But if you are saying that there is never value in being given a solution, then yeah, I am happy to agree to disagree on that point.
Sure have this moved.
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Fred Hamilton wrote:
At most , if it looks like circumstances warrant it, I may provide a working prototype to isolate and illustrate a particular concept.
The Sun Certified Java Developer Exam with J2SE 5: paper version from Amazon, PDF from Apress, Online reference: Books 24x7 Personal blog
Andrew Monkhouse wrote:Speaking as an author of a book designed to help readers with a certification, I find this a very interesting topic. One of the biggest issues we faced when writing our book was ensuring that we did not give away a solution to the assignment.
Effectively what we did with our book was as per Fred's suggestion:
Fred Hamilton wrote:
At most , if it looks like circumstances warrant it, I may provide a working prototype to isolate and illustrate a particular concept.
Our entire book is based on that premise: if you read the book and/or just download the sample code, you will find examples of concepts. When you understand the concepts then they can be easily applied to the assignment. Almost every line of code is explained in the book itself, so we hope we did a good job explaining the concepts. However if you don't try to learn from the code / don't try to understand the concepts behind the code, then the code itself will not work for the certification assignment.
Working out how to explain a concept without providing the solution to the problem can be very difficult. But it can help the reader immensely.
So maybe we need to ask ourselves what is the difference between a prototype and a solution?
And when you are riddled with people trying to cheat, it's kinda hard to step out of the mode of trying to impede the cheaters and help the honest folks when you have a situation of an honest person asking for the same thing that a cheater is always asking for.
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paul wheaton wrote:setting a one line servlet running on tomcat; a hello world for mysql; etc.
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My book, my movies, my videos, my podcasts, my events ... the big collection of paul wheaton stuff!
Tis the season for wood heat
I agree. Here's the link: http://javaranch.com/programming-pearls.jsp |