Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!apple!limbo!taylor
From: jharkins@sagpd1.uucp (Jim Harkins)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Rules of ethics for CS majors?
Message-ID: <336@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 17 Jan 90 03:03:15 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
Organization: Scientific Atlanta, Government Products Div, San Diego, CA
Lines: 31
Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

[originally from "comp.edu"]

At San Diego State nobody has ever mentioned the word 'ethics' outside of me and
some friends in a joking manner.  If caught copying someones programs we can be
kicked out of school, but I think thats the same policy that is used for term
papers and the like.

> You get caught if a TA or professor notices you cheating, but on 
> projects this is not likely.  Many students copy other's programs 
> and simply change the identifiers to get around text comparisons.

I hate to say this but a programmer's style is unique unless a group is forced
to fit a mold.  I worked in a shop that had 6-8 assembly programmers and
I could look at about 1 page of code and not only tell you who wrote it,
but who changed it (assuming the changes were only a line or two).  Granted,
in a class of 30-50 students it's not likely plagarism will be detected like
this.  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 got busted by this.  I was in a class where we broke up into groups
of 3 for a large class project.  When it was graded my group and another got
called into the teacher's office, it turns out our programs had exactly the
same bugs.  Uh oh.  Turns out a member of my group was in another class with
a member of the other group and they had swapped passwords.  Naturally Diane
used the same password on all her accounts.  Fortunatly, we could explain
how the program worked while they hadn't even looked at it, just changed
names.  So I graduate this semester, and they got kicked out of school.

jim