Ethical question

[Joe_H]

Great topic,

first off let me say that if it was not for this forum I would not be using labview today and that is why I contribute to it. But then again I did mostly learn labview on my own and i worked hard doing it since I did not have the time to learn at work where it is being utilized I had to learn it at home taking time away from my wife and kids. I also do not agree with just giving whole answers and doing the whole project for them. I believe in giving them the reasons why it is done that way. I tend to stray away from answering questions from people who post one answer and get it solved then post another, and another and another. All within a couple of days of each other. Some are legite and most are students. I would love to see a "Students corner" where they could ask their questions just so that we would know that they are infact students and we would only give the help that was in our minds Ethical. I

[Dynamik]

Hi Folks,

      Bah Humbug!     If a person is prone to cheat, are we going to change the person by holding-back an answer?  If it's a good question, we're depriving future thread readers of the solution - no matter who they are.  What about the other questions answered?  The life you [otherwise] help may be polluting the local environment or developing military technology across an ocean.  I think there are too many unknowns to worry about what's going to serve the greater good.  If it feels good to answer a question, go for it!  If it's fun to hold back and just give hints, ditto!  If there _is_ a "greater good", it's probably served through your generousity.

I have no sense of perspective - sorry if this offends.

Cheers!

[BJD1613]

Let me expand on this a little.  What do you do when your prof who taught you LV in school asks you questions.  I have kept a semi close relationship with two of my profs from school and I was receiving alot of questions for some time. Unfortunely I couldn't answer all of them due to the environment that I was working in.  I felt that I should help them because ultimately it will improve their students and after all they introduced me to the environment in the first place.  I know that their knowledge is limited and that most of their students have come out with some bad habits so I figured that I could help.  In my opinion I feel that if we can help the profs as much as we can we can help the LV community in the future by ultimately producing more skilled developers.  If the profs are more knowledgable about how they teach LV it probably will limit the questions that come up.  Maybe 🙂

[Ben]

This seems like th right place to post this request.

Could someone help me out with this problem.

Thank you,

Ben

[Ben]

Thank you!

I have big meeting tomorow and that was the last thing I needed.

Ben

[tbob]

I could give you a one star rating, that would make the number change....  I'm sure CC and some of the others would be happy to oblige.

[LV_Pro]

BJD1613,
      I wasn't suggesting that we don't help those in the academic world, just that at the beginning and end of what I perceive as the academic semester there are always a flurry of questions, frequently several from different posters, about the same or similar problems. Then, in some cases, there are a series of follow on questions, that if taken as a whole would appear to be building essentially a whole solution. I'm reluctant to "do someones homework", just as with my own children (14 - 21, high school to college) I will help point them in the right direction, but won't do the homework for them. Professors/teachers are another matter, I have no issue with showing them as much as needed to "achieve enlightenment"! But usually the ones I detect appear to be students or even "teammates" trying to get major parts of their assignment done. Similarly I've seen a few times where it appeared that someone was trying to get us to write their work project for them. I am paid reasonably well for my LabVIEW work product, have absolutely no problem helping someone resolve an issue or a few issues that may have come up in their coding, but really don't think it appropriate to do their work for them.

Love this group! Great minds, interesting ideas, "kewl" solutions. I learn from you all, and hopefully contribute as well.

P.M.

P.S.  I hope that the meeting went well Ben, I am having a week that would appear to be influenced by the "beast". Jury duty on Tuesday, car problems making me miss a meeting this morning, yada yada yada!

Message Edited by LV_Pro on 10-20-2005 11:22 AM

[Ben]

"I hope that the meeting went well Ben,"

Thanks Putnam it did. They liked our demo and we get to move on to the next phase.

I hope things settle down for you.

Ben

[roboticus]

Hi, gang--

I just stumbled across this thread while looking for something else.  But my technique is to first ask 'em a few questions to find out just what their difficulty is.  If they're reasonably motivated and it seems like they're trying to do their own work, I try to give 'em hints couched as questions.  If they're just stuck overall, then I guide 'em to a tutorial (if I'm aware of one) and tell 'em to do the tutorial, and *then* go back to their problem.  If they seem to be trying to avoid doing the work, I just ask a couple questions to hopefully get 'em to think on their own, and send 'em off with a "good luck with your problem!".

--roboticus

[TiTou]

Hi,

I like roboticus way to do and think that it's kind of fair because those who wants to understand will get alot from that method. This is certainly a good ethical way to behave for us.

But I also remember when I was a student (that isn't so far behind ) and I admit I was kind of lazy, one of my favorite catch phrase was "Why shall I do now something that can be done by someboby-else ?"... Things have changed, I have changed but most students are like this and only with a few lines it is hard to find out if the Questionner is lazy or not

So I try to help all of them ths same way, hopping that they won't be as lazy as I used to be.