Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!mit-eddie!rutgers!galaxy.rutgers.edu!argus!ken
From: ken@argus.UUCP (Kenneth Ng)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Rules of ethics for CS majors?
Message-ID: <1445@argus.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 90 14:43:39 GMT
References: <1990Jan14.124008.28784@lth.se> <596@sagpd1.UUCP>
Organization: NJ Instit. of Tech: TEIES Project
Lines: 37

In article <596@sagpd1.UUCP>, jharkins@sagpd1.UUCP (Jim Harkins) writes:
: But what will the prof think when, out of all those programs, 5-6
: unique error modes appear?  (i.e  5-6 people wrote programs, everyone else
: copied from someone else.)  Once you've caught his eye it's easy for him
: to look at the code and see that only 1 person wrote it.

I almost had a flair for doing projects in unusual ways.  My projects were
almost always so unique that any copying would immediately be noticed.  And
then even if they did copy my project, they'd probably have to explain how
it worked to the professor.  All kinds of things like, "I couldn't fit the
tables in memory, so my pascal program called FORTRAN routines to do ISAM
file I/O.  But FORTRAN ISAM I/O lacks a 'next' function, so I wrote one in
assembler." :-)  Or, when I had to be able to print output sorted in a 
programmable manner, I tossed the data into a memory format compatible with
the system editor (Univac 90/80-4 VMOS) and called it as a subroutine with
the command to sort and print the output as desired by the user :-).  

Were the programs documented?  Somewhat, although I tended to leave off 
*WHY* certain things were done and only said what was done.  Were the
programs portable?  Not on your life, but that wasn't one of the goals
in the assignment.

: I almost got busted by this.
: [edit example of mass copying of projects]

I'm not sure I sould say this, but one way teachers often look for copying
is to look for similar documentation, especially table setups, and spelling
mistakes.  After all, it is conceivable that several people will write a
program the same way, especially if you had shown that very same way in
class.  But to have several people have the same incorrectly spellled
sentence in a comment is far less likely.


-- 
Kenneth Ng: Post office: NJIT - CCCC, Newark New Jersey  07102
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