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Article #54

Re: Rules of ethics for CS majors?

#54
From: Kenneth Ng
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 1990 23:44
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[Note that we're getting a bit off-course here.  If we can bring the
 discussion back to ethics I think everyone would be appreciative. -- Dave]

I almost had a flair for doing projects in unusual ways.  My projects were
almost always so unique that any copying would immediately be noticed.  And
then even if they did copy my project, they'd probably have to explain how
it worked to the professor.  All kinds of things like, "I couldn't fit the
tables in memory, so my pascal program called FORTRAN routines to do ISAM
file I/O.  But FORTRAN ISAM I/O lacks a 'next' function, so I wrote one in
assembler." :-)  Or, when I had to be able to print output sorted in a 
programmable manner, I tossed the data into a memory format compatible with
the system editor (Univac 90/80-4 VMOS) and called it as a subroutine with
the command to sort and print the output as desired by the user :-).  

Were the programs documented?  Somewhat, although I tended to leave off 
*WHY* certain things were done and only said what was done.  Were the
programs portable?  Not on your life, but that wasn't one of the goals
in the assignment.

I'm not sure I sould say this, but one way teachers often look for copying
is to look for similar documentation, especially table setups, and spelling
mistakes.  After all, it is conceivable that several people will write a
program the same way, especially if you had shown that very same way in
class.  But to have several people have the same incorrectly spellled
sentence in a comment is far less likely.

Kenneth Ng: Post office: NJIT - CCCC, Newark New Jersey  07102
uucp !andromeda!argus!ken *** NOT ken@bellcore.uucp ***
bitnet(prefered) ken@orion.bitnet
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From: ken@argus (Kenneth Ng)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Rules of ethics for CS majors?
Message-ID: <339@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 17 Jan 90 23:44:57 GMT
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Organization: NJ Instit. of Tech: TEIES Project
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