Whatever happened to the cool homework questions?

[demerphq]

Once apon a time we used to a get a lot of students in here asking us to help with/do their homework. More often then not the questions were poorly posed, of a boring subject, or just plain old showed no effort at all and were flamed or reaped or whatever to death. But even still somewhat regularly we would get an interesting question, well prepared and showing effort on the behalf of the requestors. It seems to me that these questions spurred on the monastery to examine new angles and to open our minds to new ideas far beyond what the origianl questions were originaly about.

But these days we dont seem to get these kind of questions anymore. Maybe its just that I've been too busy (of late ive been here far less than previously), maybe its that im just getting crusty because ive been here so long or that its because im now more knowledgable about perl and as such the questions arent as interesting. I dont know. On that angle i'd be interested in hearing what other monks think, both new and old.

But also, I kinda wonder if maybe there might be a solution to my dilemna. Theres lots of academic monks here, i know who some of you are and I know theres more lurking. I wonder if maybe occasionally you could find it in yourselves to post "un-homework" questions that explore interesitng aspects of perl and of computing in general. Kind of like a cross word, or a golf, but without such extreme constraints. I know that I for one would appreciate it if you did.

Cheers

---
demerphq

_{<Elian> And I do take a kind of perverse pleasure in having an OO assembly language...}

[cchampion]

But these days we dont seem to get these kind of questions anymore.

Summer vacation looks like a good reason ... :)

[The Mad Hatter]

Summer vacation looks like a good reason ... :)

Now if only it lasted longer... : /

[dws]

Maybe its just that I've been too busy ...

Or perhaps students are on summer vacation. Here in the U.S., most schools don't start until after after Labor Day (September 1). Allow a week or so for students to get their first assignments, and they'll be back.

[woolfy]

I can just hope more of those newbies are like me (ehrm, like, what I try to do). I am reading my head off, trying to learn here and elsewhere as much as possible. The Perl Monks website, forum, databases, it offers so immensely an amount of information, so many questions have been asked AND answered, it's more and more difficult for a newbie to ask a good new question.

I'm learning Perl at the moment. For the third time in my life. Finally, I've got a real goal: to be able to maintain a small content management system around my own website, with a lot of links, small texts and articles and pictures. And to build and maintain a small web shop for my little company.

What can I say about that? Many people have done that before me. So, I'll just be a humble monk and explore this monastary, gain wisdom, read what they've asked and what was answered to them. Maybe I can come up with a good question. But mostly, I'll just learn and applicate the knowledge.

I mirror myself a bit to David Carradine in the tv series "Kung Fu", who was addressed as "grasshopper" by (at least) one of his teachers. I'm the patient and eager grasshopper and urge my fellow monks to be eager and patient grasshoppers as well. Hey, just 7 writeups and I am a monk already. Yeah, cool.

[liz]

They're back!. ;-)

Liz

[chunlou]

If you can help me implement the A* algorithm to solve my 8-puzzle problem for my AI class, I'll very much appreciate.

Just kidding.

You're right. My students are more in touch with many cutting-edge or just old challenging problems that the working monks might have totally forgotten about. The Swiss army chainsaw is only fun to use if we have fun stuff to saw.

[Anonymous Monk]

1. Perl isn't being taught in as many high-schools and universities anymore (and definately not near the introductory level). In my opinion this is a good thing, it does not make for a good introductory language.
2. Many of the questions previously "determined" to be homework simply were not. Someone asks an interesting question, they get flamed, nobody answers their question, they leave. Is that so hard to understand?
3. Perl is dying (heh, just kidding ;).

[woolfy]

   Perl is dying (heh, just kidding ;).

The internet with it, if your statement would be true. Without Perl, the internet would be dull and dead and rotting. Many many systems work thanks to Perl.

It's alive!!!