From: Benedikt Heinen <ruby@...>
Date: 2005-11-10T18:32:09+09:00
Subject: OT: ethics (was: Re: RUBY GRAMMAR)

> Turning to the internet to get your exam problems solved by others is 
> completely unethical. If you can't do it on your own, you deserve to flunk. 
> Nothing else is appropriate here.

I am not quite sure how to put this - turning to the Internet for help is 
not in itself unethical, not even for a uni course. Some courses might 
well be hard enough in themselves to warrant researching / asking for 
help.

It will become unethical, though, the moment you turn in your result 
without attributing any help you got.

I think one of the signs of a good engineer would be to also go out and 
ask others for help on something, rather than inventing the wheel for the 
gazillionth time.

Whether the ruby grammar here is an example complex enough to warrant 
asking for help, I can't quite say - I haven't seen the course the 
original poster is taking, nor do I really know where the parser fits into 
the task at hand.

I sure as heck did not *really* enjoy my javacc exercises - though, I 
pulled through them without resorting to too much help... ;-)




Benedikt

   ALLIANCE, n.  In international politics, the union of two thieves who
     have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pockets that
     they cannot separately plunder a third.
 			(Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary)