On Wed, December 5, 2007 1:35 pm, Andrew Lentvorski wrote:
> Lan Barnes wrote:
>
>> Good poets borrow. Great Poets steal.
>>                   - T. S. Eliot
>>
>> It amuses me that borrowing is plagerism in college and a best practice
>> in
>> later life.
>
> Well, there are a couple of issues here:
>
> 1) Copying (aka plagiarism) *by itself* doesn't really bother me that
> much, actually.  It's copying without understanding that causes a
> problem.  And, by the way, this is a problem in real-life, too.  I have
> had to break junior engineers of that habit.
>
> 2) In a class setting, copying the work of another for points is unfair
> to the rest of the class.  Someone gets points without doing the work.
>
> 3) However it is *my* job to ensure some level of fairness.  This means
> creating assignments and tests that will reward those who do the work
> more than those who do not do the work.  The creation of those kinds of
> tests and assignments is time consuming so a lot of teachers skimp on it
> and wind up rewarding plagiarism.
>
> I never really seem to have a problem with plagiarism.  One student paid
> me what I consider to be a high compliment, "Copying things in your
> class is more work than just doing it yourself.  Somehow, people who
> copy code in your class never get it to work with all your tests."
>
> -a
>
>

Actually, I really do understand the distinction. I've taken CS classes.
So there was some tongue in cheek.

And, yes, mass copying of copyrighted code is a no-no.

-- 
Lan Barnes

SCM Analyst              Linux Guy
Tcl/Tk Enthusiast        Biodiesel Brewer

-- 
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-lpsg

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