macOS Code Plagiarism

[Krevnik]

To the original poster:

I too have been in several programming classes while working on my computer science degree. What you're describing is pretty rampant everywhere. Unfortunately, professors don't have the time to look through everyone's code to see if there are similarities between two different individual's assignments. Out of all the classes that I've taken, I've only had one professor that would actually look at the code. The rest would just compile and run it once. When they're grading several hundred of these types of assignments, it would be easy for them to overlook things like what has happened to you. I'm not saying it's right, and I'm not condoning the action in any way....it's just what happens.

Kudos on blowing the whistle on them, though. Hopefully the professor will take the opportunity to actually do something about it in order to discourage the practice in the future. Let us know what happens.

Don't tell me this is why we are having such a hard time finding programmers in our area to hire. Sure, we get plenty of resumes, but when we screen them with an ad hoc 'exam' consisting of 5 undergrad-level questions... a good 90% of them show they lack the skills to understand what they are putting on paper. Ouch.

 

[gnasher729]

Out of all the classes that I've taken, I've only had one professor that would actually look at the code. The rest would just compile and run it once.

I once had the joy of grading student exercises in a programming course. And I got printouts (it's a while ago). There was one student in that course where I put my finger at the top of the paper, moved it down at about one inch per second, and I knew that her code would run and work fine. There was another guy whose code also worked. It usually took me half an hour to check his work.

If it takes me 30 seconds to read one students homework and see that it works, and 30 minute to read another students homework, they will get different marks. Correctness is not everything. Now the "compile and run once" approach, that is truly disgusting. Especially in a scientific environment, you might have to write code that cannot be checked (except by having someone else write another program independently, and comparing the output, and then you still don't know whose program is right).

 

[Hemingray]

Why are they teaching programming at a Unversity anyways? When I was there that was something you just had to figure out. They' give an asignment and you'd find a computer and pick a language.

That was for a Bachelor's program? That almost sounds more like a Masters level to me... wasn't there any class that at least gave the basics of software programming? If not, in my opinion it sounds like they skipped the shallow end and threw you straight into the deep end.

Kudos on blowing the whistle on them, though. Hopefully the professor will take the opportunity to actually do something about it in order to discourage the practice in the future. Let us know what happens.

Thanks. I don't like being a snitch, but when I'm the one paying good money to get a B.S., and I see a guy hitching a ride without doing the work, that's just not acceptable.

I did receive a reply from the professor, he is looking into the issue. I'll keep you updated. I also received a reply from the guy. He basically said "sorry, I'm having a hard time in this class".

And how.

 

[iSee]

So, I get an email from one of this guy's teammates, and apparently the guy completely copied HIS project from last week!

He also brought to my attention that someone ELSE in their team just copy & pasted a program they found in a Java help forum... from a student who had this same assignment two years ago:

http://forum.java.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=720832

What a corrupt bunch of *$@#&... I'm totally blowing the whistle on this. This teacher is not on the ball.

Ouch. The professor should come down on these guys like a ton of bricks. Since it's more than one student, the professor should consider taking it to the department head, too. If it's a wider problem, they need to stamp it out before it affects the reputation of the whole department.

You should just go to the professor, though (don't go over his/her head).

Does your school have an honor code or integrity policy or whatever?

 

[robbieduncan]

That was for a Bachelor's program? That almost sounds more like a Masters level to me... wasn't there any class that at least gave the basics of software programming? If not, in my opinion it sounds like they skipped the shallow end and threw you straight into the deep end.

Really? BSc at Edinburgh. Object-Oriented programming class. To that point we'd not been taught any OO languages (we had been taught C and ML though). 1st assignment: do some OO programming, use any OO language you like as long as it will compile and run on Solaris. We were not taught any particular language, it was expected that we'd be able to pick on up and apply the concepts. Which we all did. It's really not rocket science.

 

[bobber205]

That's exactly what I was saying - of course you should be able to implement what you're taught, you just shouldn't have to be required to implement it in such-and-such language on such-and-such platform ONLY. That only serves to limit the breadth of student's knowledge and how well they can apply what they learn to their future work.

My school does almost the opposite. We learn the "theotrical" stuff while we're DOING something. Theory for the most part is crap as far as I'm concerned. Practical experience is what counts. This isn't astrophysics.

Industry people can't hardly wait to hire anyone from my school because of the way it does things. We learn a wide variety of languages and have some even purely theotrical classes.

Next year I am taking Grammers, but it doesn't end there. The next term we write a full compiler on our own. How many CS students do that?

The head of our department got his masters from simply making minor modifications to one of his school projects!

 

[lee1210]

<snip>

Next year I am taking Grammers, but it doesn't end there. The next term we write a full compiler on our own. How many CS students do that?
<snip>

I certainly did, as I'm sure most people who took a compilers course do. The question isn't about programming, it's whether programming is taught as a trade or a means of expression in the scope of an education in a science.

Your post was deeply depressing, and you made it sound like a trade school education rather than a university degree program. In my opinion university is there to teach you to think, to reason, and hopefully to be a well-rounded person. I think the dishonesty discussed in this thread is an assualt on those goals.

I hope you have a professor in the next few terms that changes your mind regarding theory being crap.

-Lee

 

[bobber205]

I guess I mistyped.

At my school we're not all about "no theory". But it's not emphasized more than practical experience. We have a very rigorous layout of courses.

But to say a university shouldn't focus and teach you a language in some depth is wrong. We're taught mostly C++ as they believe a mastery of that language leads to easy mastery in others.

We must be doing something right. Our graduates have an incredible reputation on the West Coast in general. As long as you're not a complete a$$hole in interviews, you're virtually guaranteed a job.

 

[JML42691]

I know that my story has absolutely nothing to do with code at all, but I love it when people plagiarize or copy work, and end up hurting themselves. We had a final review for a first year chemistry class in high school and we were given a packet of everything we had covered in the 2nd half of the year. The review sheet was to be graded and would make up 10% of our grade for the semester. It was a 50 point packet, and 15 of those points concerned two redox reactions which we hadn't covered much. We were given the packet at the beginning of one class, and were to hand it in at the end of the next class. I did most of the packet including the redox reactions at home. I knew that I did them wrong, and would work with them in class the next day. I walked into the class the next day, placed my books down in the room and went to the restroom before class started. When I came back, by notebooks were open and my packet was opened to the redox page. I knew perfectly what had happened, as a group of kids in the class scattered away from my stuff as I walked in. I spent the class fixing all my work and corrected the reactions. The look on the kid's faces the next day when we were handed the papers back was priceless. Boy they were pissed, I scored nearly a perfect score, while their scores were in the teens, with a big X on their redox pages. You have to love karma.

I hope that your scenario works out, and that the other kids in the group get the book thrown at them.

 

[Watabou]

I know how you feel. 250 lines of code is not a lot but it's still plagiarism.

I took java classes in high school this year and people plagiarised off of each other all the time. But it was usually limited because we didn't upload our codes and the teac her usually catches anyone he suspects of plagiarizing.

But it makes me so angry when someone does though. It is my code and copying it is not cool at all.

I had this one guy come up to me and say that he wanted help. I did my sincere best to help him about arrays and java.util.Arraylist but then he asked for the whole entire code so he can "take some hints from it". Yeah right.

 

[pilotError]

To the OP, I would say get over it and move on. Your reputation is more valuable than the small satisfaction of turning someone in.

You'll never know where you end up in your future. This guy could end up being your boss in the future.

Trust me, people know when your not doing the work. Everyone has a style, and that style permeates through everything you do. When someone like him comes forward and the code is so different from week to week, its a matter of time before he gets busted.

But to say a university shouldn't focus and teach you a language in some depth is wrong. We're taught mostly C++ as they believe a mastery of that language leads to easy mastery in others.

The only language they taught in my school was Assembler, mainly because its architecture dependent, and there was no other good way to teach it.

We were taught theory and concepts. You chose the language (within reason) and handed in your assignments.

I have to say it really helped me get over the language bias. I pretty much bounce back and forth between many languages (both scripting and compiled) and really don't have an issue with it. It doesn't bother me in the least when I have to write something complex in language I don't use all that often (or never before). It's all the same crap after a while.

Don't get hung up on being the best C++ coder evar because there will always be someone better than you.