Do you ever get the feeling...

Question

...that sometimes by answering some of these user questions your doing their homework?

Does this offend your personal ethics?

How do you prevent this?

(I try to introduce some more complex code, or at least something that I would think the instructor would look at and think "Yeahhh, he poached this answer...")

Answer 1

I see no problem. Some guys just don't get it or are not interested in coding and still got the subject as obligatory in their curriculums. Or - possibly in many cases - are not interested *because* they don't get it.

Even then though, I try to be as helpful, explicit and educative, as possible. Maybe at least some grain of knowledge stays on :)

Answer 2

its okay for me as long the poster understand it and can improve his/her skill.

Answer 3

Just give em tips instead of the complete answer. :>

Answer 4

@Hatsy, from now I'll give them my algorithm instead of program

Answer 5

I usually answer to those questions like-
"Do your homework by own!"

Answer 6

@Edward - or the dreaded "How to program face recognition?" question. "Yeah - I'll get right on that..."

Answer 7

i agree with @kuba. if its a mandatory course for something like a math major, but they dont like programming, i wouldnt mind helping. the only time i get annoyed is when its a really long homework and they basically just post it here and tell someone to do it. like they should at least try a little

Answer 8

@Sachin - and that's an appropriate response on Stack Overflow or Code Guru, but here most of the questions are so basic there's no telling if it's someone doing homework or legitimately trying to learn something.