On Sat, Apr 5, 2014 at 8:33 AM, Mark H Harris <harrismh...@gmail.com> wrote: > On 4/4/14 1:16 AM, James Harris wrote: >> >> YMMV but I thought the OP had done a good job before asking for help and >> then asked about only a tiny bit of it. Some just post a question! > > > Indeed they do. Its a little like negotiating with terrorists. As soon as > you negotiate with the first one, you then must negotiate with all of them. > Bad plan.
What, you treat student programmers like terrorists?!? Ouch. > The OP was soooo close, that to give him the help is immoral for two > reasons: 1) it deprives him of the satisfaction of accomplishing the > solution to the puzzle himself, and 2) it deprives the instructor (whoever > she is) of the teachable moment. There is something she is trying to get > Dave to learn, and she really *does* want him to go through the entire > exercise on his own. I strongly disagree. If someone is asking for a hint, it's because s/he is trying to learn. I'm always willing to help someone learn, regardless of whether they're going through a course or currently employed or whatever. Sometimes a small hint can be obtained from the interpreter itself; but often, it takes a measure of experience to grok (one of the differences between the expert and the inexperienced is how quickly a traceback can be read - an expert can often go straight to the line with the problem); a hint from another Python programmer can be immensely helpful, as it can include advice as well as a hard "this works, that doesn't". ChrisA -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
