Reply to: Why would you think that...

[zeitghost]

And to round this off, back he comes the next year, equally clueless, and I took pity on him & talked him through the exercise one stage at a time.

And he passed.

And fecked off.

A win.

[milanbenes]

thank you Zeit,

I therefore trust you will now be more lenient with said students
and respect their initiative

Milan in 'been there in the viva discussion with the lecturer and not been able to answer where said software used linked lists or pointers' mode.


p.s and yes it was embarressing.

[threaded]

we have all heard stories about companies buying competitor's products and stripping them down in the labs to see how they work

and this doesn't only apply to IT, it is same for the motor industry, the bio-tech industry etc

Didn't Fords do that to one of British Motor Corporations offerings? Fords were wondering how they could build it so cheaply, they eventually worked out that it was actually costing £100 more than they were selling each car for .

[wendigo100]

we have all heard stories about companies buying competitor's products and stripping them down in the labs to see how they work

and this doesn't only apply to IT, it is same for the motor industry, the bio-tech industry etc.

That is merely the equivalent of reading related literature.

These companies don't then build the competitor's products and sell them as their own. Unless they have a licence of course, which would blow your metaphor out of the water.

[milanbenes]

we have all heard stories about companies buying competitor's products and stripping them down in the labs to see how they work

and this doesn't only apply to IT, it is same for the motor industry, the bio-tech industry etc

Zeitghost should be positively encouraging these skills and techniquices, the ones who show initiative at Uni are the ones who will loead industry and create opportunities to keep the others who wouldn't copy in work for the rest of their lives

to conclude, you lot on your moral horses should be thanking people like this for creating the opportunity for you to work

Milan.

[Churchill]

crikey,

give them a break, what's up with a little copying at Uni ?

shows initiative, if every research lab behaved with the morals of you lot there would be no new technology, or certainly advances in technology by competing companies in different sectors would not be as fast as it is today

these people should be appluaded for using their initiative, showing that they are team players and able to think outside the box when trying to solve a problem with a deadline which is business critical


Milan.

Ah, the thin line between plagiarism and research...

[milanbenes]

crikey,

give them a break, what's up with a little copying at Uni ?

shows initiative, if every research lab behaved with the morals of you lot there would be no new technology, or certainly advances in technology by competing companies in different sectors would not be as fast as it is today

these people should be appluaded for using their initiative, showing that they are team players and able to think outside the box when trying to solve a problem with a deadline which is business critical



Milan.

[wendigo100]

I wonder how Niall is doing these days...

DeludedProgrammer.com

Yup, he's still at University...

God, what a boring lot of bollocks that is!

[bobhope]

Ahh, the old traffic lights project - are you doing the lift one as well?

The great thing about those projects done at college/whatever is that it really showed how good/bad your fellow students were.

At work, you can normally muddle through, hide general incompetence, etc. Only under those conditions does the fact that only a handful of a class of ~100 could really program appear.

[Churchill]

The funniest one I've heard was about this guy who gave in some work.

As standard practice, lecturer googles on it & up comes a Wikipaedia entry.

Turned out the guy had written the wiki page himself... and it was, apparently, all good stuff.

I wonder how Niall is doing these days...

DeludedProgrammer.com

Yup, he's still at University...

[Moscow Mule]

Traffic lights? On a uni course?

Talk about dumbing down - we had to do that at A-Level.

[wendigo100]

...people think that outsourcing our jobs to India would be a good idea.

They obviously haven't seen what happens at traffic lights in India.

[Euro-commuter]

In fact, we are astoundingly lucky these guys don't set up traffic lights as a job, or we'd all be dead... they have no concept that both directions should pause on red before one direction goes to green.

I'm sorry, but this does happen in Real Life (tm). It's the equivalent of TFL's journey planner telling you to change tube lines at King's X in 0 minutes (which they do). My partner often rails against overpaid IT people/web site designers who get paid for coming out with such crap. I sometimes try to refine her job spec categorisations but I wholeheartedly agree that hanging is too good for some of them, it's a good kick in the arse they need.

People like that, in our trade, are the reason that we are valued so low in public estimation (step outside fora like this and watch the respect melt away); and ultimately the reason why people think that outsourcing our jobs to India would be a good idea.

[where did my id go?]

Sounds pretty lenient to me, I've have kicked the fecker off the course for plaguism

cant do that. Need the funding.

[Ardesco]

Sorry fingers aren't working that well today, but would serve them right for trying to cheat.