jeff95350

Exactly.

To often, I think we're focused on the writing of code rather than the reading of code. Annotations sometimes seem repetitive, but repetitive can aid the readability.

Type inference might be a very nice compromise. Haskell allows you to annotate with type information, and that may provide more helpful errors, but usually it's optional. But people do it anyway, because type information tells a reader so much about the program.

If we just focus on writing, then clearly the programming language is meant only for unidirectional communication from a human to a computer. But if we focus on reading as well, then it becomes about humans communicating with other humans.

"I'd rather have the Space Shuttle's control software written in Ada than Java."

That's what I was thinking, too. Was Ada really meant for "other people" to use? I wonder how many people involved in the process went on to write Ada afterward?

I don't know the facts, but I would guess that the critical system software writers in the US are a fairly small group, and anyone on that committee knew they would end up writing a lot of Ada afterward.

I doubt it was the same kind of "make a language for the masses" simply because there aren't masses of people capable of writing software for critical systems. I would guess that it had more to do with a mutual pact: programmers have to add extra annotation for interfaces and constraints; but in return they can absolutely rely on those interfaces and constraints because they know that the compiler enforces them.

"[in OO programming] I also have what you would call the categorization problem: which object do I put my code in?"

It seems to me like object-oriented style forces hierarchies onto the problem. It's fine to use hierarchies when it is a part of the problem, but when it's not, it causes all kinds of problems.

Erlang doesn't seem to impose hierarchies at all.

"are you equally comfortable being the widget that's being processed within the assembly line, and whether the widget is getting the best value?"

A valid point. There are many ways of learning though, and if you want instruction and materials personalized to you, those are available -- albeit at a much higher cost. And there are other, self-directed methods of learning that are a much lower cost than either method (e.g., going to a library, doing research online, etc.). [Aside: who pays the cost is a separate issue, but someone must pay it.]

Given that society is constrained by scarce resources, I think that re-using tests is a perfectly reasonable allocation of resources for many teaching situations. Other materials are re-used regularly, such as textbooks, and there's nothing personal about that. Would you say that using the same textbook as someone else turns you into a "widget"?

It's unfortunate that your educational experience was so unpleasant. My K-12 experience seemed quite wasteful as well. But I think that has more to do with incompetence and laziness. Doing more personalized teaching requires more teachers, which means they will have an even harder time attracting enough quality talent, and an even harder time firing bad teachers. That doesn't sound like a net win on quality to me, even if it is more personalized.

"I'll admit it's somewhat shocking to me as well."

Me too... I actually registered an account on HN just to reply. Society depends on honesty even in the face of complicating factors -- and if an intellectual community like HN doesn't stand up for honesty, that greatly disturbs me.

"There is a (probably minority) group here that seems anti-higher education"

I think most of it is more like a contrarian attitude. Some very smart people tend to pull in a lot of interesting -- though tangential -- perspectives and observations and then end up getting distracted from the fundamentals.

Cheating is cheating. Maybe the teacher or his teaching strategy was flawed. Maybe the students, at one point before test day, had honest intentions. Maybe some students were partially (or wholly) honest after the fact by alerting the teacher. But the rest of the students, who proceeded with the test even though they knew the test was compromised, were dishonest.

"Your job as a teacher or as a presenter is to extend the available materials"

I'm puzzled by this. Let's say you teach basic physics or algebra... how are you supposed to "extend" the material, particularly testing material?

I always thought the benefits of having a teacher were: 1. Human contact 2. Ability to answer arbitrary questions in an instant 3. Ability to adapt lectures to the audience 4. Students in the presence of a room full of other people trying to learn the same thing at the same time

Those would all be great benefits even if the tests were all the same, administered in a standardized way, nationwide, by third-party proctors with third-party graders.

That's not to say that there's anything wrong with independent study, online courses, or ad-hoc groups of students learning together.

I just take issue with the idea that a teacher, in order to do their job, must also compose novel tests every year as though the new tests would somehow be better than all the other tests used over the years. If teaching honest students, it just doesn't sound like an efficient use of teaching resources to re-invent the wheel each time.

And there are objective benefits to using the same or similar tests from year to year. One is that you can see if your class is improving or lagging in specific areas compared with previous classes. That could help you hone your teaching over the years. Wow, I tried playing this game to illustrate economics, and these students scored way higher on the arbitrage questions than the previous 5 years! Or: "gee, I thought that group project might be good, but the test scores dropped this year".

"I can make a bunch of honest decisions in my studying for a class and then become dishonest by the dishonesty of a teacher"

The thing that I think you are missing is that it's all about mutual expectations.

It's the same thing if you take a picture of a TV and put it on eBay for $100. Then, someone buys it and you send them the picture of the TV rather than the TV itself. That's totally unethical of the seller, even if they never say that they are selling a TV explicitly. The buyer expects to receive a TV, and the seller knows that the buyer expects to receive a TV, and proceeds knowing that the buyer's expectation is flawed. Maybe the seller really likes photographing TVs as a form of art, and thinks that their work is worth $100 per print (honest so far); but that doesn't matter because they knew the buyer had other expectations, and did not inform them (dishonest now).

The fact that many students didn't have access to the test ahead of time, and that the students received the test surreptitiously (as another comment said) is evidence of the teacher's expectation, and of the students' knowledge of the teacher's expectation. The fact that students knew this expectation was flawed means that saying nothing is dishonest.

"You would risk being accused of cheating [if you informed the teacher that you had special access]."

The epitome of rationalization.

Academic honesty is taken seriously, and there are third parties that evaluate the situation objectively. If you simply say, "I didn't do anything that I thought of as cheating, but today on test day I realized that I had an advantage that I wanted to inform you about," there is zero chance of permanent consequences.

"So instead somebody did it anonymously."

Why didn't everyone then? Maybe those few people are honest, or some approximation thereof. But what about the other ~190 that didn't?

Even assuming the teacher was lazy, or plagiarized the test, that's simply no excuse.

Anyone who sees questions that they had early access to from some special source (a source not available to all students) has a clear ethical responsibility to inform the teacher that they had special access.

It might be slightly ambiguous when, by happenstance, a few questions are the same or similar. But when all of the questions are the same, what are these students thinking? They know that other students are seeing these particular questions for the first time even if they studied intensely.

Students can choose how they learn. But the professors choose how the students are tested, and this test was clearly compromised due to student dishonesty. You can throw other factors in if you want, but dishonest is dishonest.