From yechiel Mon Dec  9 20:31:57 2002
Subject: Re: mtm HW assignment 2
To: A student
Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2002 20:31:57 +0200 (IST)
Cc:  (Gill Barequet),  (Yaniv Hamo), (Oleg Izmerly)

> Hello!
> 
> I am a student taking the matam course this semester
> and the way assignment 2 is being handled by the TA
> is not fair, in my opinion.
> 
> I find somewhat troubling, that someone who is,
> and i quote, "WRONG WRONG WRONG" is responsible
> for teaching me and for my grade.

Everyone makes mistakes.  Few admit it.
At least, you should respect them for that.
Should I understand that you prefer that
we do not admit we had a mistake?
Would you, rather, learn from people that never make mistakes?
Like politicians?  Like software companies that sell you
products with no warranty?

When I was at elementary school I had a teacher that admitted
she read two contradictory explanations in two books
but could not tell what was wrong and what was right.
She gave us both versions.  I admired her then, and I still
think she was one of the best teachers I have ever had.
[Her name was Ruth Oren.]

> Furthermore, not only that the way the IO functions
> the TA gave us does not let us reuse functions from HW 1,

Yes, this is bad and unfortunate.

> but also, after we worked hard to changed it to the twisted
> way he wanted us to do it - and it worked, now we have
> to do it all over again on the expense of our time.

If you understand the explanation - it requires 3 lines
of code-change.  If you do not understand it, think again.
If you still do not understand it - come to office hours
(TAs/Lecturers).

> I ask you, is this fair?, is this right?

1. That's life.
2. In *that* case, it is even fair!
   We gave up correcting it the right way
   only to save work for some students 
   who wrote their code in not the best way.
   (a good code could be easily modified
   even for a completely correct version)
3. You were lucky to see "programming in action".
   You have the chance of learning more than you would have,
   had things gone smoothly.

> Please answer me and tell me what do you think.

I just did ;-)

> Thanks.

Not at all, it's my duty.

> Regards, "A Student".

I wish you success
Yechiel

P.S:  You'll find this e-mail (with your name stripped off)
      on my Web page as a service to other students
      who wonder about the same problem.
Yechiel
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Have you looked at recent updates to "Bad Books Amusement Park" ?
Try     http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/users/yechiel/CS/BadBooksC+C++.html

			    TIME cannot be saved !!!
	You can either borrow it - and PAY high interest in return,
		or     invest it - and GET high interest in return.

	Yechiel M. Kimchi		    XXX@xxx
	Faculty Comp. Sc.		    The Technion, Haifa, 32000 IL
	Office: (04) 829 4226		    FAX: +(972) 4 822 1128	
	Homepage: http://www.cs.technion.ac.il/users/yechiel/