this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 240 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (47 children)

I understand cheating is shitty but it would make a lot more sense for the teacher to make this a teachable moment about cheating, and to promote collaborative solutions, but also checking work you get from others.

A huge part of development is copying code and reusing code from libraries. The important part is that you know how the code you copy works.

[–] [email protected] 175 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (5 children)

Their teachable moment is that plagiarism has consequences, and they earned that lesson entirely by themselves.

[–] HerrBeter 27 points 10 months ago (8 children)

Sure, but as a general rule the carrot is a better incentive than the stick.

[–] [email protected] 116 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Let's not pretend these are kids who have a test for their first time. They all were told to not cheat and that cheating would lead to expulsion.

[–] Daft_ish 12 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I refuse to feel bad knowing that chances are they have been given an opportunity that many others would never get.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 10 months ago (1 children)

On the flip side, all threat of consequences works as a deterrent only when there's the expectation to be caught and punished.

By always catching but never handing out punishment to kids violating rules, you only teach them that consequences are inconsequential.

[–] HerrBeter 8 points 10 months ago (1 children)

To clarify, I wasn't trying to argue there shouldn't be consequences, just that depending on severity it must be proportional.

I want to compare it to the US justice system where, from an outsiders perspective, many are judged unnecessarily harsh. This makes it harder for people to "come back" after release and creates a societal loss.

I'll end it there because I cba to write more but, eh, just my thoughts. Some nuance is lost in translation too.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Your thoughts are valid and I agree – in principle.

The proportionate punishment does, however, depend on the severity of the violation. In an academic context, there are few things as severe as blatant plagiarism. Being caught in not just cheating but brazenly copy-pasting other people's work can imho be appropriately punished with expulsion, be it in the US or elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Expulsion is honestly not a harsh punishment in that case

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

As a general rule, the stick is better than the carrot when teaching someone what not to do. But this guy's goal isn't to teach them "cheating is bad" but to weed out dishonest people too stupid to program.

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[–] MashedTech 109 points 10 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 10 months ago (3 children)

The important part is that you know how the code you copy works.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (9 children)

If you give cheaters too many chances, the other students will feel betrayed. And I guess rightly so.

It's not uncommon to get mails directly, or later in course evaluation, from students who complain about other students that didn't put in the work. I can only remember few cases where there were names involved. Typically it's some general complaint, but the frustration is obvious.

It sucks when you make an effort but witness other students cheating their way through the class. What are we supposed to tell them when the dishonest behaviour of other students doesn't cause any consequences?

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago

It's University. If you don't know by 18-22 if cheating is bad, despite each class at the beginning of the semester explaining the penalties for cheating, you deserve to get expelled.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 10 months ago

Surely these kids knew that cheating is bad before they enrolled in college.

[–] grue 34 points 10 months ago (1 children)

"Teachable moments" are for freshmen. Cheating seniors can get fucked.

On a very related note, I actually earned my CS degree.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 10 months ago

Believe it or not, one of the goals of a good university is to not graduate stupid people who don't know anything.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Keep in mind, it's likely that more people cheated, but the smarter ones changed just enough code to make it look "their own", or actually tested to ensure it'd work, and thus weren't caught. Those 22 caught are very likely the ones that copy-pasted verbatim.

[–] LemmysMum 8 points 10 months ago

Then the smarter ones fulfilled the task, knowing and understanding the material enough to provide a working solution, rather than paste a non-working one. They may have done less than someone working from scratch but they showed themselves no less competent in the material.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago

make this a teachable moment

A person's character is built at home. If you're an adult in secondary school and can't figure out not to cheat, better hope you get a warning and understand THAT's the only teachable moment you're going to get.

The prof has neither the time or opportunity to fill in where your up-bringing was incomplete . Uni is the first place we learn that the universe doesn't have a lot of patience for the laggards.

[–] Landless2029 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Strongly agree.

I was lucky enough to take a computer science course at my high school almost 20 years ago. The teach straight up we web design was 90% copying and 10% modification. He was a early retiree webmaster switched teacher.

Fast forward to today. System administration. I'm not paid to code. I'm paid to fix problems. So I research and focus on remediation. If there's a script for a fix I'm using it.

I'm super paranoid about copying code to use on a production system though. Whenever I come across a script or code to fix an issue i go through it line by line to ensure I know what it's doing.

Often I'll just take the logic or parts I need and write my own.

[–] Maggoty 14 points 10 months ago

That's something you do in the freshmen year. This is a master's program. They should be able to write the tests that catch a cheater themselves and they know better.

[–] uis 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Reminds about recent Linus' rant on LKML.

You copied that function without understanding why it does what it does, and as a result your code IS GARBAGE.

AGAIN.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

My uncle's a uni professor. First assignment last semester was writing a paper specifically using ChatGPT, and seeing how much work you had to do to fact-check it and make an actual paper.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago

Junior/senior level students know the consequences of cheating. Professor catches students cheating. Students face consequences of cheating.

"BuT tEaChAbLe MomEnT!"

[–] fkn 12 points 10 months ago

The difference between a quality college/University education and a shit one of that the students who should fail get failed.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

I work in IT, and it's a similar situation. Bluntly, I Google half of the tickets I touch. I don't really know shit about how things work specifically. I know the generalities, and the structure in which they function. I have the foundation of knowledge to know what to Google, but the fact is, I don't remember crap about how to do just about everything.

There's simply too much to know.

In college, using Google was a sin. IMO, they should teach a class on how to get the results you need from Google because you're not going to remember whatever the subject is when you need to in six years and you come across an issue which requires that knowledge.

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