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As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

nytimes.com

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Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#171

Post by mafribe »

flamedoge wrote: post #142
stale2002 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But even then, you'd be surprised how many people don't even do that..... Even so, I usually ask something that is barely more difficult, like traverse a tree, or reverse a sentence. There is no point at all in asking the hardcore, Google interview questions, as a simple question tells you just as much, which is "do you have a pulse".

I got asked compiler question once. How to find dominators. I haven't had to find dominators for a very long time other than from a college course, mostly only used them. Looking it up, it's definitely not something you can come up with because it's so clever.

Was this interview for a compiler position?

Anyway, dominators make sense for arbitrary directed graphs (with a notion of root).

Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#172

Post by b0rsuk »

closeparen wrote: post #87
chrismcb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't the University's job to teach people how to code. University isn't a vocational school. Yes, one should know how to code when they graduate. But the school is usually trying to teach the theory not the coding

What? Almost the entire meat of my CS program was programming projects in a variety of foundational domains (operating systems, networking, concurrency, databases, graphics, compilers, cryptography, machine learning, visualization, etc). Theory (discrete math, algorithms, formal languages) was 3 courses out of an 18-course program. HN keeps talking like it's the only thing you do in a CS major, which is bizarre.

We had 5 kinds of maths; algorithms and data structures, databases, computer architecture (with assembly), English lessons, history of mathematics, operating systems, networking, and 2 programming courses: C and Java. There was very little learning by doing.

Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#173

Post by mrlyc »

thegayngler wrote: post #115
humanrebar wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is effective hiring. Meh. Hiring is expecting other people to train your employees for you. It's important to hire smart, driven, forthright people, but if you really want them to, say, write readable code, assign them to read Clean Code, make code clarity part of the regular performance review, add it to the code review checklist, etc. In my opinion, bigger than hiring practices is a lack of communica…

TBQH, Management does not care about clean code so much as getting a project out by the deadline however unrealistic it may be. Clean code is very low on their list of priorities. Even among managers who used to be engineers it's very low on the list of priorities. They say they care about it. That's not the reality though.

It depends on the company. One place I worked at instituted a bonus system with the result that programs were released on time, buggy or not, as releasing them late would have reduced the managers' bonuses. I raised a stink about that by repeatedly saying "We really must inspect the code before the product ships." I was sidelined and let go early when the company shrank to a shadow of its former self, infested by people who were more interested in furthering their career than doing the job.

The next company I worked at was very serious about quality. When I started working there, I was told that I was allowed one bug in my code. If there were a second one, I would be fired. I'm not sure if that was true as my code didn't have any (found) bugs. It was thoroughly inspected by two senior engineers before I could even run it on the test bench. We were some months behind schedule but there was not one word about reducing the quality to catch up.

The first company made communications equipment, the second one an air traffic control system.

Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#175

Post by UK-AL »

lacampbell wrote: post #85
yulaow wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have no idea how many times in a interview (especially with big corps) I end up talking with a PM and he tells me "Yeah, I started here already as Project Architect after my cs degree. I really don't like coding or anything related so I never do it, I focus on architecture and guide the others". And then I mentally run away.

What companies let fresh CS grads start as Project Architect?!

They normally start as a project analyst, product management assistant etc

Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#176

Post by nebabyte »

objclxt wrote: post #131
KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #27

Why do those students even need to cheat? Harvard has a 97% graduation rate and Stanford 93%.

I used to Head TA CS at Harvard (or "TF", to use their verbiage), so can answer this: the graduation rate is very high, but honors are capped (mainly because the honors rate was at one time out of control). Personally I never really cared for honors, but for many people it can be extremely important. Because honors are capped at a fixed percentage of the class relative to GPA this means it's vital to maximize your gr…

Why not turn that to your advantage? Institute a policy wherein they are bumped down if they send an email and their reason for doing so does not fall within pregiven requirements (e.g. clerical error in recording a grade).

An excellent prof at the non-Ivy I went to did this, and it was quite effective. Some small percent of your grade (significant enough to bump you if needed) was guaranteed unless you chose to try and create noise to get moved up.

Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#177

Post by raverbashing »

chrismcb wrote: post #76
jdmichal wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a lecturer as a close friend in college. He was only a lecturer because he refused to do a dissertation to complete his doctorate. He was the best teacher in the department. So it goes. Anyway, he would get up in front of the staff meetings and say, the school is graduating students who do not know how to code. The school didn't care; they got paid. Every class of any import had team projects because "that's wh…

It isn't the University's job to teach people how to code. University isn't a vocational school. Yes, one should know how to code when they graduate. But the school is usually trying to teach the theory not the coding

"It is not the medical university's job to teach people to practice medicine. It's not a vocational school. The school is usually trying to teach the theory, not the practice"

See how it doesn't make sense?

Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#178

Post by salesguy222 »

varjag wrote: post #160
salesguy222 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a foil to your claim that people don't die from bad code: In 1999, when the US was engaging in a bombing campaign in Serbia against "military targets" that were staffed by civilians, the US bombed the Chinese Embassy, killing several and injuring dozens of civilians. The US later "apologizied" by saying "sorry, we programmed the coordinates improperly." Now, I'm not sure if that means some CIA intern college kid t…

Pretty sure operational missile targeting isn't done by programmers.

Do you think a typographer can enter coordinates into a system from the late 80s?

The pilots themselves can't even enter the coordinates. These planes were programmed by the CIA.

Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#179

Post by UK-AL »

flukus wrote: post #84
robotic wrote: post #15

This reminds me of My last year at university. At our final senior project we each had to give a group presentation. I remember this one group that showed off this VB6 program (which was considered outdated language even then). They didn't know how to run the program without opening visual studio and clicking run. They didn't even have basic understanding of compilation/run phases. They couldn't answer basic question…

I've worked with a tonne of people in the industry like this, particularly in MS land where something is "impossible" if Visual Studio can't do it. Often you'll end up with a million projects for namespacing because they don't know what a folder is. It's only going to get worse as we have a generation of kids that have only used tablets and don't know what an "exe" is, or even a file.

I find that multiple projects are heavily used in Visual studio, because a lot tooling works better by splitting into projects instead. NCrunch is the example here.

It's easier to enforce dependency rules. A domain model should not have any dependencies on a specific technology, the easiest to way to enforce that is a separate project, with no references.

Re: As Computer Coding Classes Swell, So Does Cheating

#180

Post by flamedoge »

mafribe wrote: post #171
flamedoge wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got asked compiler question once. How to find dominators. I haven't had to find dominators for a very long time other than from a college course, mostly only used them. Looking it up, it's definitely not something you can come up with because it's so clever.

Was this interview for a compiler position? Anyway, dominators make sense for arbitrary directed graphs (with a notion of root).

yea, but for a target dependent backend position.
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