GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down • Hacker News Board

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#111

Post by nitrogen » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:07 PM UTC

da_big_ghey wrote: post #75

truth_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an unethical practice employed by some companies. Although in many cases it can be circumvented by buying old textbooks anyway. I am glad that many CS authors nowadays make textbooks available for free. And companies like O'Reilly, Packt, and Manning provide DRM free copies.

also many professor make wink-and-nod that student may simply "find pdf copy" from internet. good ones are not desiring for to make students pay large moneys.

Bad ones on the other hand make you buy their badly photocopied, handwritten notes from the university copy center, where the receipt is itemized as:

Binding and printing: $1.50

Royalties to professor X: $$

I literally changed majors back in my school days over those shenanigans by the department head.

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#112

Post by jedimastert » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #89

IceWreck wrote: post #35

We should have a penalty/fine for fake DCMA requests. Big corps keep sending automated DCMAs with little consequence and often the little guys do have the resources to fight back.

Even simpler, require those filing a claim to put down a monetary deposit. If the accused disputes, they too file a deposit. The winner gets the money back and the platform gets to keep the losers deposit as a fee for having a trained, certified human make the decision. Make the fees scale up with the number of claims by an accuser. No one would file a frivolous claim. No one would dispute an obviously correct claim.…

> If the accused disputes, they too file a deposit.

If you can't afford to loss $100, you probably can't afford to temporarily not have it either.

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#113

Post by nitrogen » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #100

truth_ wrote: post #12

Not totally unrelated: Pearson is a piece of trash company. They sell very overpriced textbooks and always use DRM in online copies. They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. And guess who provides the certificate required by teachers to evaluate those exam copies? Yes, Pearson. And they make a ton of money. Please watch this talk for more context (even if you d…

> They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. This is totally false. State standardized test is the natural consequence of state public education accountability system. There must be a comparable measure across all the public schools in the state as the foundation for accountability measurements. And all (>95%) the students must be tested for equity reasons. No ma…

I read their comment not as saying that standardized tests are Pearson's fault, but that Pearson gets states to mandate that they are Pearson tests.

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#114

Post by truth_ » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:19 PM UTC

bronson wrote: post #77

truth_ wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an unethical practice employed by some companies. Although in many cases it can be circumvented by buying old textbooks anyway. I am glad that many CS authors nowadays make textbooks available for free. And companies like O'Reilly, Packt, and Manning provide DRM free copies.

When I tried using a previous edition, the page numbers and most of the exercises didn't line up. "Thursday's test will be on pp 144-172 inclusive, and get to know exercise 5.17." It put me at a surprisingly big disadvantage. Pretty sure the publishers anticipated this.

If the teachers are helpful, this would not be an issue. In most places I went to, teachers understood, and some peer always helped people with older textbooks. For problem set additions or extra chapters or pages, we used to photocopy those pages before high-res cameras became a norm in mobile phones.

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#115

Post by onionisafruit » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #111

da_big_ghey wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also many professor make wink-and-nod that student may simply "find pdf copy" from internet. good ones are not desiring for to make students pay large moneys.

Bad ones on the other hand make you buy their badly photocopied, handwritten notes from the university copy center, where the receipt is itemized as: Binding and printing: $1.50 Royalties to professor X: $$ I literally changed majors back in my school days over those shenanigans by the department head.

At least the university copy center is open about it vs taking the blame themselves for ridiculous printing fees.

I would expect better from Professor X though.

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#116

Post by manquer » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #100

truth_ wrote: post #12

Not totally unrelated: Pearson is a piece of trash company. They sell very overpriced textbooks and always use DRM in online copies. They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. And guess who provides the certificate required by teachers to evaluate those exam copies? Yes, Pearson. And they make a ton of money. Please watch this talk for more context (even if you d…

> They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. This is totally false. State standardized test is the natural consequence of state public education accountability system. There must be a comparable measure across all the public schools in the state as the foundation for accountability measurements. And all (>95%) the students must be tested for equity reasons. No ma…

It is nuanced, they don't directly drive the need for standardization, but drive to privatize the standardization.

Doing that, they can influence a lot on the scoring, quality, content and certifications around the standardization and fund the psychometric research establishing validity/equity of the tests.

Like any other big org biz, specing the RFP is one easy way to win the contract.

A decision marker (corporate or government) is likely to choose and mandate a pearson test rather than fund the research and development of their own which best fits their needs because it is easier.

Unlike other industries testing by is nature becomes monopolistic, nobody is going to say you can either of these three tests : it is hard to compare between two tests, so winner takes all.

Pearson and others in the space, exploit this by high prices , poor content etc because that's what monopoly tend to do.

This is all because of privatization of school vendors, why can't content and tests be developed by the state as well ?. Many countries do this.

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#117

Post by temp8964 » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #113

temp8964 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. This is totally false. State standardized test is the natural consequence of state public education accountability system. There must be a comparable measure across all the public schools in the state as the foundation for accountability measurements. And all (>95%) the students must be tested for equity reasons. No ma…

I read their comment not as saying that standardized tests are Pearson's fault, but that Pearson gets states to mandate that they are Pearson tests.

Every state has a selection process. Several testing companies will bet on the contract.

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#118

Post by temp8964 » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

manquer wrote: post #116

temp8964 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They lobby for standardized tests in states and get them mandated. Students are put through them. This is totally false. State standardized test is the natural consequence of state public education accountability system. There must be a comparable measure across all the public schools in the state as the foundation for accountability measurements. And all (>95%) the students must be tested for equity reasons. No ma…

It is nuanced, they don't directly drive the need for standardization, but drive to privatize the standardization. Doing that, they can influence a lot on the scoring, quality, content and certifications around the standardization and fund the psychometric research establishing validity/equity of the tests. Like any other big org biz, specing the RFP is one easy way to win the contract. A decision marker (corporate o…

I am not sure what you are talking about. There are several testing companies, Pearson is not the only one. And states have a selection process and technical review process done by outside psychometricians.

Yes. There are places where tests were developed by the government agencies, which are not professionals. Mostly their tests lack psychometric regorious, not comparable across years.

I'm not sure what you meant "poor content". A few flaws here and there?

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#119

Post by trasz » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

easton wrote: post #25

fartcannon wrote: post #21

Is it time for a sci-hub like event to replace github? It would be better for the repository of nearly all modern public programming creativity be something more like Wikipedia, and less like LinkedIn.

Given the technical nature of the work, developers who can't jive with GitHub's policies can throw up a GitLab/Gitea server in an hour and evade censorship. And of course, as we learned with youtube-dl, the issue isn't the code/commits (since everyone gets that with a git clone), it's the issues and PR history. Any public file host has to deal with the DMCA, and (for now, barring any evil brought on by Microsoft), I'…

Should we perhaps invent a standard convention for keeping issues and PR history along with the usual source code in the repo itself?

Re: GitHub repository for Sedgewick's Algorithms is taken down

#120

Post by madhadron » Sat, May 01, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

temp8964 wrote: post #118

manquer wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is nuanced, they don't directly drive the need for standardization, but drive to privatize the standardization. Doing that, they can influence a lot on the scoring, quality, content and certifications around the standardization and fund the psychometric research establishing validity/equity of the tests. Like any other big org biz, specing the RFP is one easy way to win the contract. A decision marker (corporate o…

I am not sure what you are talking about. There are several testing companies, Pearson is not the only one. And states have a selection process and technical review process done by outside psychometricians. Yes. There are places where tests were developed by the government agencies, which are not professionals. Mostly their tests lack psychometric regorious, not comparable across years. I'm not sure what you meant "p…

The question, then, is why not have the state university build the tests and write the textbooks? Then you fund the actual creation once and can straightforwardly fund updates and alterations as needed.